2. Scientific researches not only push forward technique but also improve the standard of
living. One of the pointers of the living standards is the quality of the public health
service. It should be said that the quality and perspectives of medicine have improved
recently. Modern medicine has changed both in the area of qualified medical care and
the level of financing (Maureen, 2009). But the main merit of scientific results application
to medicine is innovative technologies introduction. Nowadays progress in qualified
medical care is bound not only to research in biology or medicine, but also to scientific
achievements in other fields of science. There are plenty of innovations used already
and many possible changes are regarded to be perspective in future. In this article most
of them are discussed and critically reviewed.
Nuclear Medicine Nuclear medicine is a modern field of medicine that uses the
achievements of physics and biology for diagnostics and treatment of various diseases.
“An estimated 16 million nuclear medicine imaging and therapeutic procedures are
performed each year in the United States. Of these, 40-50% are cardiac exams and 35-
40% are cancer related” (Ozarks Community Hospital, 2011). When nuclear medicine
methods are used for diagnostics they represent not only anatomical changes but also
indicate the functional level alterations of the organs and systems examined. The image
3. observed on the computer via a special camera is formed due to a radiopharmaceutical
that entered the patient’s body through mouth or was injected or inhaled. The radiation
amount received by the patient is even smaller than that resulting from X-ray diagnostic.
That’s why nuclear medicine is considered to be a safe method that can be applied to
children.
First the term “nuclear medicine” was used when physicians used radioactive iodine to
cure thyroid cancer (Resource Center, 2012). Scientists used the fact that thyroid gland
absorbs high amounts of iodine. But it was difficult to select a specific radioactive
isotope for each organ. So, later monoclonal antibodies were used to deliver the isotope
particularly to cancer cells. Nowadays some kinds of cancer and heart diseases are
treated with the usage of this technology (Resource Center, 2012).
A real break occurred in medicine with the development of magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) technique in diagnostics…