What is Nuclear Medicine?

In nuclear medicine, very small amounts of radioactive material or radiopharmaceuticals is used for examining organ function or structure for example to diagnose cancer. The radioactive material is absorbed by the soft tissue in the body and helps visualization of abnormalities.

At DTU Health Tech, the Hevesy Lab produces such radiopharmaceuticals every morning for hospitals in the area. The medicine is used in connection with scanning of cancer patients for example to find malignant tumours. As the half-life of the radioactive material is very short, the production starts at 3:30 in the morning to enable shipping of the product to the hospitals to use during the same day.