Quote:
Originally Posted by jaby
Got to get this off my chest....the bit when he said that they injected some sort of radiation (can't remember exactly what it was) into the acupuncture points and watched it go to the various organs etc on a speeded up Catscan. I was distracted thinking ...who would volunteer for that? Would it harm a healthy person? Was it someone who was dying, so it didn't matter? Another confusing moment for me...the mixed emotions of 'oh, that's interesting' with...'who did they get to volunteer for that?' were they harmed by it?
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Having a Medical Technologist (ASCP) degree I can tell you there is a section of laboratory diagnostics and treatment that uses small, safe doses of quickly decaying radioactive materials. They however are not read by CT scanners, but by a gamma camera.
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/servic...r_Imaging.aspx
Radioactive tracers used in nuclear medicine are, in most cases, injected into a vein. But for some studies they may be given by mouth. These tracers are not dyes or medicines, and they have no side effects. The amount of radiation a patient receives in a typical nuclear medicine scan tends to be very low.
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/...r/default.aspx
Nuclear medicine tests are very sensitive and can detect many diseases at early stages.
Unlike MRI and CT scans that give only structural information, nuclear medicine tests provide information about the functional status and viability of different organs and tissues.
Here's a good overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_medicine and I see that now they can be used in imaging to combine both CT scan technology and the nuclear imaging by superimposing one over the other.