What are radioisotopes, pet and spect?

Visibility: Radioisotopes make molecules that are not typically visible on x-rays to show up. In the example of pet, a common molecule used is a radioisotope of glucose (sugar). Tissues that are growing rapidly would accumulate the sugar more readily, and the positrons emitted from them would show up on an x-ray. Spect is similar, but takes more images from different angles to make 3d images.

Radioisotopes are: Radioactive forms of an element, like iodine, tc99m and f18. Spect is an acronym for single photon emission computed tomography which is a fancy way to re-create an image of the inside of the body using multiple images from around. Pet is positron emissionttomography where matter and antimatter collide in a body, release a gamma ray (like an x-ray) and a picture is formed like spect.