Medicine and Nuclear Science

Hal Anger, a nuclear scientist, was the man whocamera to receive the gamma rays coming from the
invented the gamma camera. Is a medical device, apatient is a part called a collimator. Like a colander that
camera, that is used to look at the internal organs andstrains liquid from the solid, the nuclear medicine
how they are functioning at the time. He invented itcollimator on the gamma camera channels all of the
back in the 1950's and it is still around today, nearly 70gamma rays into the camera head that is full of
years later.crystals. What happens from there and how that
The gamma camera works by through gamma rays.becomes an image that you can see and make a
The patient is given a solution to drink or injected withdiagnosis from is some complicated nuclear science
a solution that contains a low level of radiation that willstuff that most people do not understand anyways.
emit gamma rays. Depending on the organ that isAll that really matters for most of us is that it works. In
being target to be looked at, a different type ofparticular, because since its invention, the largest
solution is given. The reason for this is because certainsuccess story of the gamma camera is that of the
types and mixes of the solution will be absorbed byfight against breast cancer. It has been able to detect
different organs.tumors much sooner, making the odds of survival in
Once the solution is in the patient, they are then putbreast cancer patients much higher.
under the gamma camera. The first part of the