Is nuclear medicine for diagnosis or for treatment purpose?

Can be both: Nuclear medicine is primarily about imaging the physiology of the body. Nuclear medicine procedures are usually for diagnosis - to learn more about the function (or dysfunction) of a physiologic process. However, some nuclear medicine procedures are therapeutic. The best example of this is radioactive iodine therapy for thyroid cancer or hyperthyroidism (over active thyroid).

Primarily diagnosis.: There are only a few instances where nuclear medicine is used for treatment: radioactive iodine is given orally to treat thyroid overactivity (hyperthyroidism or graves disease) and thyroid cancer. Ocasionally it is used to treat the bone pain from cancer. The vast majority of the time nuclear medicine procedures are used for diagnosis.

Both Dx & Tx: Most of nuclear medicine is diagnosis. However, we also use treat many disorders such as thyroid cancer, hyperthryoidism, lymphoma, and bone metastases.

Both, mostly diag: Most work we do in nuclear medicine is for diagnosis. However there are a few things we do for treatment.For example, we help treat thyroid disease (hyperthyroidism), and help treat thyroid cancer. There are also some medicines (monoclonal antibodies, tagged with a radioactive material) which can be used to treat some cancers (lymphoma).

Both: You can use nuclear medicine to diagnose a disease process ( acute cholecystitis, coronary artery disease ect.) as well as eliminate a disease ( hyperthyroidism and lymphoma). It depends which radio pharmaceutical you use and how much you give the patient.

Both: Nuclear medicine involves using internal irradiation in order to define function of heart, lungs, bones, liver/spleen, stomach, thyroid gland, lymph system, kidneys, bladder, brain, parathyroid gland and gall bladder. Some isotopes are injected iv, inhaled, and some ingested. Isotopes of higher doses are used to treat thyroid diseases.Amount of irradiation controlled for individual & environm