Where: |  | You will report to the Outpatient registration area on the 1st floor of Park Tower, Oconee Regional Medical Center with your doctor’s order. Please report to registration 30 minutes prior to your scheduled appointment time. |
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Purpose : | | Nuclear Medicine varies from x-ray because it records radiation from the “inside-out”. Special substances called radiopharmaceuticals or radiotracers are used to create images of anatomy. This radioactive substance are injected, swallowed or inhaled by the patient. A special type of camera is able to detect emissions created by the radiopharmaceuticals in the bone, organ or tissue being examined. Nuclear Medicine documents the function as well as the structure of organs, bones and tissues.
Common procedures include thyroid scans, brain scans, bone scans, lung scans, cardiac stress tests, liver and gallbladder procedures.
Because the doses of radiopharmaceuticals administered are small, diagnostic nuclear medicine procedures result in minimal radiation exposure.
Women should always inform their physician or the nuclear medicine technologist if there is any possibility that they are pregnant or if they are breastfeeding their baby. |
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Preparation: | | You will receive specific instructions based on the type of scan you are undergoing. |
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Procedure: | | Your will be positioned on an examination table. If necessary a technologist will insert an intravenous (IV) line into a vein in your hand or arm. Depending on the type of nuclear medicine scan you are undergoing, the dose of radiotracer is then injected intravenously, swallowed by mouth, or inhaled as a gas. It can take several seconds to several days for the radiotracer to travel through your body and accumulate in the organ or area being studied. As a result, imaging may be done immediately, a few hours later, or even several days after you have received the radioactive material. |
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After Care: | | The patient will be given aftercare instructions, prior the leaving the hospital.
The radiologist’s report of the results will be sent to your doctor. Your doctor will discuss the results of the test with you.
Please call (478) 454-3816 (Nuclear Medicine Department) if you have additional questions. |
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Reviewed: | | 12/31/2008
Copyright 2008, Oconee Regional Medical Center
821 N. Cobb Street Milledgeville, GA 31061, (478) 454-3505 |