Radiopharmaceutical: Revolutionary Agents for Diagnosis

Radiopharmaceuticals play an imperative role in clinical nuclear medicine by providing a tool to better understand human disease and develop effective treatments. This is the base to use these radioactive substances in diagnosis. Radiopharmaceuticals are radioactive agents that consist of either a gamma or a positron-emitting radionuclide bound to ligands which have been used extensively in the field of nuclear medicine as non-invasive diagnostic imaging agents to provide both functional and structural information about organs and diseased tissues. Diagnostic radioactive pharmaceuticals can be used to examine blood flow to the brain, functioning to the liver, lungs, heart, kidneys, to assess bone growth and to confirm other diagnostic procedures. Another important use is to predict the effects of surgery and assess changes since treatment. They may be given to the patient in several ways, e.g. orally, parenterally, or placed into the eye or the bladder. Today's clinical practice of nuclear medicine revolves primarily around the use of systemically administered gamma- or positron-emitting radiopharmaceuticals as diagnostic tools for imaging the human body.