Nuclear medicine; practice, growth and future

Nuclear medicine is a branch of medical imaging that uses small amounts of radioactive material to diagnose and determine the severity of or treat a variety of diseases. Nuclear medicine image is formed from the ionizing radiation usually gamma rays which are emitted from within the body. This technique offers the potential to identify disease in its earliest stages. A more recent development is Positron Emission Tomography (PET) which is a more precise and sophisticated technique using isotopes produced in a cyclotron. PET's most important clinical role is in oncology. It is also well used in cardiac and brain imaging. New procedures combine PET with CT scans to give co-registration of the two images (PETCT), enabling 30% better diagnosis than with traditional gamma camera alone. Nuclear medicine global market was estimated to be $5, 500 million in 2013 and is expected to reach $8, 050 million by 2020. The most common radioisotope used in diagnosis is technetium-99, with some 40–45 million procedures per year, accounting for 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures worldwide. Nuclear medicine's potential stays underutilized in India because of certain limitations. Cheaper machines with features for high quality images and small ‘baby ’cyclotrons which are less expensive and available on site and which can produce the commonly used radioisotopes, needs to be produced.