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Nuclear medicine

Nuclear medicine involves the use of unsealed radioactive materials in medical diagnosis, treatment and research.

Nuclear medicine has applications across a broad spectrum of disease, focussing particularly on oncology, cardiology, nephro-urology, orthopaedics, rheumatology and neuropsychiatry. Radiopharmaceutical development and technical innovation have expanded the range of diagnostic procedures available, most notably in the field of positron emission tomography. In addition to established treatments for benign disease, nuclear medicine therapies for lymphoma, bone, liver and neuro-endocrine malignancies are advancing rapidly. Nuclear medicine research techniques are now regarded as essential in the evaluation of new pharmaceuticals and are key to the development of drugs for schizophrenia, movement disorders, Alzheimer's disease, coronary artery and thromboembolic disease, among others.

There is a strong interdisciplinary element to nuclear medicine teams, service delivery relying on close collaboration between physicians, physicists, technical officers, radiographers, radiopharmacists, specialist nurses and radiologists. Given the widespread applications of nuclear medicine, nuclear medicine physicians liaise regularly with doctors from virtually every other specialty.

Related RCP publications

Specialty training

For information about specialty training in nuclear medicine, please visit the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Postgraduate Training Board (JRCPTB) website.

Specialist societies

Specialty career profile

If you are trainee considering what specialty to opt for, the RCP has developed career profiles to give you more insight into what is involved and how other physicians found the training.

Access the career specialty profile for Nuclear medicine (PDF 359Kb)