What are some radioactive elements that are used in the field of Medicine?
Thank you for the question. And a very good question at that. A few common examples: Technetium is used by nuclear medicine physicians to image the heart muscle during a cardiac “stress test” to evaluate for a condition called myocardial ischemia from coronary artery disease. This radioactive tracer, which is chemically attached to another molecule, is taken up by the heart muscle (myocardium) in direct proportion to the perfusion, or blood flow, to that area of muscle, both during “rest” (before the actual stress of treadmilling or chemical -induced contraction of the heart) and after stress. The difference in the myocardial uptake of the technetium before and after the stress can identify areas of heart muscle that are ischemic, or deprived of blood flow, and infer which coronary artery circulation is blocked. Technetium is also used to image the parathyroid glands to determine if there is an overactive parathyroid gland, (presumably from a benign tumor or hyperproliferative tissue c
