text: what is nuclear medicine?   nuclear medicine is a branch of medicine and medical imaging that uses unsealed radioactive substances in diagnosis and therapy. these substances consist of radionuclides, or pharmaceuticals that have been labelled with radionuclides (radiopharmaceuticals). in diagnosis, radioactive substances are administered to patients and the radiation emitted is measured. the majority of these diagnostic tests involve the formation of an image using a gamma camera. imaging may also be referred to as radionuclide imaging or nuclear scintigraphy. other diagnostic tests use probes to acquire measurements from parts of the body, or counters for the measurement of samples taken from the patient. in therapy, radionuclides are administered to treat disease or provide palliative pain relief. for example, administration of iodine-131 is often used for the treatment of thyrotoxicosis and thyroid cancer.  nuclear medicine imaging tests differ from most other imaging modalities in that the tests primarily show the physiological function of the system being investigated as opposed to the anatomy. in some centres, the nuclear medicine images can be superimposed on images from modalities such as ct or mri to highlight which part of the body the radiopharmaceutical is concentrated in. this practice is often referred to as image fusion.  nuclear medicine diagnostic tests are usually provided by a dedicated department within a hospital and may include facilities for the preparation of radiopharmaceuticals. the specific name of a department can vary from hospital to hospital, with the most common names being the nuclear medicine department and the radioisotope department. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/nuclear_medicine