- What are Nuclear Medicine and Radiopharmaceuticals?

Nuclear medicine is the branch of medicine that comprises the biological and medical use of radiopharmaceuticals. It is based on the possibility of detecting, with very high sensitivity, the radiation emitted by radioactive atoms, even when they are introduced into the body. Coupling a fast-decaying isotope (radionuclide) with a molecule with known fate (vector) provides a radiopharmaceutical that enables elective tissue marking in the body.
This temporary radioactivity is detected using specialized apparatus: special cameras capable of detecting the radiation emitted by areas where radioactivity is accumulated, producing images of this sector.  Nuclear medicine can thus develop the extension of the affected sector, identify the disease, and provide a diagnosis.
Isotopes, whether natural or synthetic, have the same chemical properties as their non-radioactive isologues, the only difference being that they are unstable. This instability leads to decay that emits radiation.

To be usable in medicine, an isotope has to fulfill 3 conditions:

- deliver the lowest possible irradiation dose,
- have a short lifetime in the body, but which is enough to enable physiological observation,
- emit radiation that is as harmless as possible and can be detected outside the body.

Instruments detecting radiopharmaceuticals are called cameras.

Nuclear Medicine covers two fields of application:
-  the therapeutic application of radioelements,
- diagnostic medical imaging.

Currently, Laboratoires CYCLOPHARMA are only focusing their activity on the second area. Very small quantities of radioactivity are used for diagnostic medical imaging, which means that patient irradiation is very low, especially as the isotopes used have a short half-life (time by which half the radioactivity had disappeared through decay), at from a few minutes to a few days.

Medical imaging is an area that has been developing fast since the arrival of PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and new molecules. PET consists in observing the tissue distribution and uptake of a molecule (such as glucose) labeled with a radioactive isotope (called positron emitter). When administered to patients, this molecule is used to image organs and tissues according to their sugar needs and thus their metabolism.