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Nuclear Medicine Physics
Nuclear medicine embodies the successful mixture of basic science and medicine in
patient care. Physics, chemistry, pharmacy and computer science are all essentials of
nuclear medicine practice. The nuclear medicine physician and technologist must have a
working command of these areas and rely on the physicists for optimum patient care.
The very basis of nuclear medicine imaging lies in the discipline of physics. The
operation of nuclear medicine equipment is dependent on complex physical principles.
Issues of the radiation dose to the patient and workers also fall in the physics area. The
optimization of medical imaging parameters for patients as a whole, as well as for
individual studies, requires the participation of the physicist. The role a nuclear medicine
physicist can be summarized into:
Ü QA imaging devices, eg, gamma cameras (figure 1) in order to ensure good imaging
quality (figure 2), PET, PET/CT (figure 3) to ensure good imaging quality for each
modality (figure 4), bone densitometer etc.
Ü Patient dosimetry, both in vivo and in vitro, for new imaging techniques.
Ü Provision of radiation protection measurement and calculation.
Ü Occupational dose monitoring particularly for new imaging techniques.
Ü Radioactive waste management and documentation.
Ü Statistical analysis for clinical trial results.
Ü Educational training in nuclear medicine physics to hospital personnel and to public
interest.
Ü Perform acceptance test to new imaging equipment.