We use scans that involve injecting, swallowing or inhaling very small amounts of radioactive drugs called radiopharmaceuticals. The radiopharmaceutical selected for your scan is specific to the organ being imaged. As the radiopharmaceutical travels to the area being examined, a gamma camera detects the photons released by this radioactive material and maps their distribution.
The nuclear medicine cameras are connected to computers that process the information to produce pictures for the nuclear radiologist to interpret. There are no common side effects in nuclear medicine.