Medicinal radiochemistry

Hungarian chemist (1885–1966)

medicine imaging technique

medical specialty

chemical compound

200px|thumbnail|right| A carbon-11 labelled radiopharmaceuticalRadiopharmaceuticals, or medicinal radiocompounds, are a group of pharmaceutical drugs containing radioactive isotopes. Radiopharmaceuticals can be used as diagnostic and therapeutic agents. Radiopharmaceuticals emit radiation themselves, which is different from contrast media which absorb or alter external electromagnetism or ultrasound. Radiopharmacology is the branch of pharmacology that specializes in these agents.

pharmaceutical drug

Technetium-99m (99mTc) is a metastable nuclear isomer of technetium-99 (itself an isotope of technetium), symbolized as 99mTc, that is used in tens of millions of medical diagnostic procedures annually, making it the most commonly used medical radioisotope in the world.

Fluorine-18 (18F, also called radiofluorine) is a fluorine radioisotope which is an important source of positrons. Its half-life is 109.734 minutes, less than two hours, and one of the shortest of radioisotopes with use outside research. It decays by positron emission 96.7% of the time and electron capture 3.3% of the time. Both modes of decay yield stable oxygen-18.

therapeutic subgroup of the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System: Diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals

therapeutic subgroup of the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System:Therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals

chemical compound

Radiopharmacology is radiochemistry applied to medicine and thus the pharmacology of radiopharmaceuticals (medicinal radiocompounds, that is, pharmaceutical drugs that are radioactive). Radiopharmaceuticals are used in the field of nuclear medicine as radioactive tracers in medical imaging and in therapy for many diseases (for example, brachytherapy). Many radiopharmaceuticals use technetium-99m (Tc-99m) which has many useful properties as a gamma-emitting tracer nuclide. In the book Technetium a total of 31 different radiopharmaceuticals based on Tc-99m are listed for imaging and functional s

chemical compound

chemical compound

Theranostics, or theragnostics, refers to the combination of diagnosis and therapy (treatment) of disease in a single medical intervention or technique. For example, a combination of radioactive isotopes may be administered to simultaneously identify and attack cancerous lesions. Typically theranostic approaches involve a medical imaging component, such as radiotracers, contrast agents, positron emission tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging.