Radionuclide therapy

Dear patient,

your treating physician has referred you in the department of nuclear medicine because of the need of radionuclide therapy. Here can you find more details about the procedures :

In nuclear medicine, which examinations and how are carried out?

The function of various organs is investigated in nuclear medicine with help of which diseases or functional disorders a very early stage can be detected. This involves the use of a very small amount of a radioactive medicament, which is usually injected through an arm vein. For certain examinations, the medication is also administered differently, e.g. as a capsule, injected under the skin or inhaled via a mask.

Depending on the medicament, the low-level radioactive substance participates in various metabolic processes in the body or can accumulate in certain body organs. When the radioactive material decays, Gamma-rays are emitted, this recorded with special devices (Gamma camera, PET scanner) and processed into images.

Since the radiation is sent out by the examined patient and the devices themselves do not emit any radiation, additional images do not lead to increased radiation exposure. For a good image quality, it is necessary to lie still during the examination; otherwise the images will be blurred. This may be unpleasant, especially in the case of prolonged examinations. This is why we make every effort to ensure comfortable positioning for every patient.

The time schedule of a nuclear medical examination

Depending on the organ to be examined, images are taken at different times. Sometimes the first picture is taken immediately after the injection of the medicament, while other examinations require a waiting time of several minutes to hours. For certain examinations, admission on the following day is also necessary. Depending on the type of examination, blood may have to be tested several times. For some examinations a sober appearance is indispensable. Hypersensitivity reactions or allergies to the medication used are not to be expected, since very low amounts of a radioactive substance are used.

Can you estimate the radiation exposure during a nuclear medical examination?

Radiation exposure in a nuclear medical examination is similar to that of a chest X-Ray but lower than that of a CT examination. The medication administered is of a short-term nature and therefore decays very quickly in the body. A large part is secreted through the kidneys after a short time. Permanent damage is undetected and not to be expected.

However, a nuclear medical examination is only performed during pregnancy if it is urgently necessary and no other alternative procedure can be used. Since radioactive substances can be released via breast milk, lactation sometimes has to be interrupted for a certain period of time after a nuclear medical examination.

Are there nuclear medicine tests for children?

Especially for children, the advantage of nuclear medicine is that the examinations are not very invasive, i.e. they cause hardly any pain. Occasionally, as with a normal blood sample, there may be a small bruise at the injection site. In children, the dosage of the radioactive drug is adjusted to their body weight. Overall, the radiation exposure is even lower compared to an X-ray examination for certain questions (e.g. kidney examinations).

• Selective internal radiotherapy (SIRT)
• Peptide receptor-mediated radionuclide therapy (PRRT)
• Therapy of bone metastases with Xofigo (Ra 223)
• PSMA-directed radionuclide therapy (PSMA-PRRT)

Further information you can find under: