Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging

Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging is a section within the Department of Diagnostic Radiology that uses small amounts of radioactive materials to either image the function of organs or systems within the body or to treat disease. Our clinical mission is to provide advanced, high-quality, safe, and comfortable radionuclide-based imaging and therapy for all our patients. In addition, our academic mission is to teach the next generations of physicians with expertise in this field, as well perform research from the bench to the bedside. Very small and safe amounts of gamma or positron emitting radiopharmaceuticals are used to image a variety of processes within the body including cancer, heart disease, infection, and so on, using molecular targeting resulting in functional imaging. These unique images provide information not obtained by other imaging modalities in Radiology and are very sensitive. The emitted radiation is used to create an image using gamma cameras (including Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT)) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Our section has three SPECT scanners, two with CT capabilities as well, and two PET/CT scanners.