Nuclear Medicine in India

Abstract

The regular supply of radiopharmaceuticals and radioimmunoassay kits from BARC has been an important factor in the development of nuclear medicine in India. However, a major stumbling block has been the non-availability of suitable instrumentation systems (especially the computer-assisted gamma camera) at an affordable price. Two recent developments, viz., the creation of the Board of Radioisotope Technology by the Department of Atomic Energy, and the efforts of Electronic Corporation of India Ltd. to design indigenously a gamma camera with a computer attachment, hold promise for the future healthy and rapid growth of nuclear medicine in the country. Training in nuclear medicine at the post-graduate level is gradually picking up. Nuclear medicine is essentially applied physiology and biochemistry, and provides an orientation, different from those of the anatomist and physiologist. The gamma camera, SPECT and PET enable the study of dynamic metabolic function resolution to spatial and temporal resolutions. Newer developments in tagged monoclonal antibodies hold promise for a better understanding of infectious and inflammatory disease which are a burden in the developing countries.