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How should I prepare for the procedure?
Usually, no special preparation is needed for a nuclear medicine examination. However, if the procedure involves evaluation of the stomach, you may have to skip the meal immediately before the test. If the procedure involves evaluation of the kidneys, you may need to drink plenty of water before the test.
How is the procedure performed?
A radiopharmaceutical is usually administered into a vein. Depending on which type of scan is being performed, the imaging will be done either immediately, a few hours later, or even several days after the injection. Imaging time varies, generally ranging from 20 to 45 minutes.
The radiopharmaceutical that is used is determined by what part of the body is under study since some compounds collect in specific organs better than others. Depending on the type of scan, it may take several seconds to several days for the substance to travel through the body and accumulate in the organ under study, thus the wide range in scanning times.
While the images are being obtained, you must remain as still as possible. This is especially true when a series of images are obtained to show how an organ functions over time. After the procedure, a physician with specialized training in nuclear medicine checks the quality of the images to ensure that an optimal diagnostic study has been performed.
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