Nuclear medicine physician

Nuclear Medicine Physicians are medical specialists that use tracers, usually radiopharmaceuticals, for diagnosis and therapy. Nuclear medicine procedures are the major clinical applications of molecular imaging and molecular therapy. In the United States, nuclear medicine physicians are certified by the American Board of Nuclear Medicine and the American Osteopathic Board of Nuclear Medicine.

In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity. It was only a little over a quarter of a century (1925) until the first radioactive tracer study in animals was performed by George de Hevesy, and the next year (1926) the first diagnostic tracer study in humans was performed by Herman Blumgart and Otto Yens.

Some of the earliest applications of radioisotopes were therapy of hematologic malignancies and therapy of both benign and malignant thyroid disease. In the 1950s radioimmunoassay was developed by Solomon Berson and Rosalyn Yalow. Dr. Yalow was co-winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (Dr. Berson had already died so was not eligible). Radioimmunoassay was used extensively in clinical medicine but more recently has been largely replaced by non-radioactive methods.

In 1950, human imaging of both gamma and positron emitting radioisotopes was performed. Benedict Cassen's work with a directional probe lead to the development of the first imaging with a rectilinear scanner. Gordon Brownell developed the first positron scanner. In the same decade (1954) the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) was organized in Spokane, Washington (USA), and (1958) Hal Anger developed the gamma scintillation camera, which could image a whole region at the same time.

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