Nuclear Medicine

When you need answers about how your body is work­ing, nuclear med­i­cine can help pro­vide a clear­er pic­ture. At Duly Health and Care, we use advanced imag­ing tech­nol­o­gy, like SPECT/CT and PET/CT scans, to see not just the struc­ture of your organs, but how they func­tion in real time.

Our nuclear med­i­cine spe­cial­ists focus specif­i­cal­ly on inter­pret­ing nuclear imag­ing stud­ies. This means the physi­cian read­ing your scan is an expert in nuclear med­i­cine pro­ce­dures like bone scans, car­diac stress tests, thy­roid imag­ing, and oth­er spe­cial­ized nuclear stud­ies. When you have a nuclear med­i­cine scan at Duly Health and Care, a board-cer­ti­fied radi­ol­o­gist who spe­cial­izes in these spe­cif­ic imag­ing tech­niques will inter­pret your results.

This focused exper­tise leads to more accu­rate diag­noses and bet­ter care for you. Ready to sched­ule your scan? We have flex­i­ble hours and are open five days a week for your convenience. 

Call (630) 545‑7880 to sched­ule an appoint­ment today.

What is Nuclear Medicine?

Nuclear med­i­cine helps us see how your organs are work­ing, not just what they look like. We use tiny amounts of safe radioac­tive trac­ers that trav­el to spe­cif­ic parts of your body. These trac­ers act like a spot­light, show­ing us how well your heart pumps, how your kid­neys fil­ter, or if there are areas we need to exam­ine more closely.

How is nuclear med­i­cine different?

• CT and MRI scans: Show struc­ture (like a photograph)

• Nuclear med­i­cine: Shows func­tion (like a movie of your body working)

How do the trac­ers work?

The trac­er we give you trav­els to the organ we want to study. Our spe­cial cam­eras detect ener­gy from the trac­er and cre­ate detailed images. Dif­fer­ent trac­ers go to dif­fer­ent places:

• Heart trac­ers → heart muscle

• Bone trac­ers → bones and joints

• Brain trac­ers → brain tissue

Types of Nuclear Med­i­cine Scans

We offer com­pre­hen­sive nuclear med­i­cine imag­ing to help diag­nose and mon­i­tor many dif­fer­ent con­di­tions. Our spe­cial­ized radi­ol­o­gists focus on spe­cif­ic areas, so you get expert inter­pre­ta­tion of your results.

Heart & Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Health

Nuclear stress tests show how blood flows to your heart dur­ing rest and exer­cise. Unlike tra­di­tion­al stress tests, these pro­vide detailed images of your heart muscle.

Heart func­tion scans (MUGA) mea­sure how well your heart pumps blood and can detect dam­age from heart attacks or treatments.

Can­cer Detec­tion & Monitoring

Nuclear med­i­cine plays an impor­tant role in can­cer care — both in detect­ing can­cer and mon­i­tor­ing treat­ment response.

• Whole-body bone scans can iden­ti­fy areas where can­cer may have spread to the bones.
• Thy­roid scans eval­u­ate nod­ules or thy­roid func­tion abnor­mal­i­ties that may relate to thy­roid cancer.
• Tar­get­ed nuclear med­i­cine ther­a­pies (such as radioac­tive iodine for thy­roid can­cer or spe­cial­ized trac­ers for neu­roen­docrine and prostate can­cers) deliv­er treat­ment direct­ly to can­cer cells while min­i­miz­ing dam­age to healthy tissue.

These imag­ing and treat­ment tools help our care teams:

• Detect can­cers in ear­ly or hid­den stages
• Eval­u­ate how well the treat­ment is working
• Check for recur­rence or spread of disease

Neu­ro­log­i­cal Imaging

• Our advanced nuclear med­i­cine stud­ies also sup­port the diag­no­sis and man­age­ment of neu­ro­log­i­cal conditions.
• Brain func­tion scans help eval­u­ate move­ment dis­or­ders, seizure activ­i­ty, or oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal changes.
• Dopamine trans­porter (DaT) scans can aid in diag­nos­ing Parkinson’s dis­ease and relat­ed con­di­tions by assess­ing brain activ­i­ty patterns.

Oth­er Essen­tial Scans

• Bone Scans: Detect arthri­tis, frac­tures, infec­tion, or can­cer spread — espe­cial­ly help­ful for unex­plained bone pain.
• Thy­roid Scans: Eval­u­ate thy­roid func­tion and inves­ti­gate nod­ules or goiter.
• Kid­ney Scans: Assess how well your kid­neys fil­ter waste and iden­ti­fy block­ages or oth­er problems.
• Lung Scans: Show how well air and blood flow through your lungs, help­ing diag­nose blood clots or breath­ing issues.
• Gall­blad­der (HIDA) Scans: Eval­u­ate gall­blad­der func­tion and detect bile duct block­ages or inflammation.