Historically, the journey of Nuclear Medicine began in 1896-1897, the period when the “strange” radiations, as they were called then, were discovered by Henri Becquerel and Marie Curie, in which uranium was present as a radioactive material as well as the radio. For this reason, later, this form of energy was called radioactivity, after the first compound, radium.

Then, in 1936-1939, the first attempts at isotope therapy were made, in which phosphorus, a radioactive isotope, was used to treat leukemia, but also iodine 128 was used to study the thyroid gland.

What ailments can Nuclear Medicine treat?

“First of all, it is worth mentioning that all these materials we use, the so-called radiopharmaceuticals, follow the metabolism of various organs. So these cases, which we see, whether diagnostic or therapeutic, are based on the function of the organ.

In more detail, in the case of diagnoses, at the Metropolitan Hospital, in the Nuclear Medicine department, where we have all the top equipment in terms of technology (SPECT and PET technology), we deal with scintigraphy. That is, the patient can check diseases such as dementia, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, ischemic strokes, memory disorders, as well as other diseases related to the brain, with the brain scan. There are 3 types of scintigrams, but essentially they are all brain scintigrams”, says Mr. Theodoros Chatzipanagiotou, Director of Nuclear Medicine at the Metropolitan Hospital

Are radioisotopes always used in the diagnostic phase?

“During the diagnosis phase, radioisotopes are always used either pure, as it is a natural radioisotope, or in combination with chemical substances, during which radioactive molecules are created. In this case we take advantage of the fact that these molecules have the ability to go to some organs, for which we know what they are like when they are normal and what they are like when they are pathological.

Another reason the patient may visit our department is to check possible cardiac diseases, such as ischemia, heart attacks, poor ejection fraction of the heart’s blood to the periphery, etc.

Other tests that may be needed are thyroid scintigraphy, kidney scintigraphy, and pulmonary blood scintigraphy for pulmonary embolism.

In general, there are scintigrams for all organs with which we can diagnose important diseases in terms of poor organ function, while radiology approaches them at a morphological and not a functional level,” he points out.

What about the treatment part?

“Precisely because we see the function part in treatment, we can administer isotopes to the patient either alone as a natural element, or in combination as molecules with other substances to be able to treat diseases. The known treatment, over time, is radioactive iodine therapy to treat thyroid cancers.

Also, with the same material, but in smaller quantities, we can treat hyperthyroidism or goiters, swellings of the thyroid.
Also, another treatment, is the so-called radiohymenolysis, which is a treatment of the joints when we have fluid production, joint pain, redness and all other injection methods, which are usually performed by orthopedists, fail. In fact, in Northern Europe and especially in Germany, approximately 80,000 such treatments are performed each year, but in our country they are still not that widespread.

Finally, these methods have started to be applied in the last six months with great success in oncological diseases, such as prostate cancer and hepatocellular carcinomas” concludes Mr. Hatzipanagiotou.

*The Metropolitan Hospital operates a full state-of-the-art Department of Nuclear Medicine with state-of-the-art equipment, in which both in vivo diagnostic tests and therapeutic applications of radioisotopes are performed.
At the same time, the Metropolitan Hospital’s PET/CT Unit has a state-of-the-art Positron Imaging Tomograph that combines the capabilities of a high-definition (HD) Positron Emission Tomography-PET system with those of a leading diagnostic 128-slice CT scan system. This combination results in improved image quality and reduced examination time allowing it to be performed even on burdened patients.