Perfusion Scanning - NM Perfusion

NM Perfusion

Nuclear medicine uses radioactive isotopes for the diagnosis and treatment of patients. Whereas radiology provides data mostly on structure, nuclear medicine provides complementary information about function. All nuclear medicine scans give information to the referrering clinician on the function of the system they are imaging.

Specific techniques used are generally either of the following:

• Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), which creates 3-dimensional images of the target organ or organ system.
• Scintigraphy, creating 2-dimensional images.

Uses of NM perfusion scanning include Ventilation/perfusion scans of lungs, myocardial perfusion imaging and functional brain imaging.