Abstract

PEDROZO, MG et al. Nuclear Medicine at the Health Sciences Research Institute, National University of Asuncion): Current state and projections. Mem. Inst. Investig. Cienc. Salud [online]. 2014, vol.12, n.2, pp.91-103. ISSN 1812-9528.

In the Paraguayan public sector, the Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Salud (IICS) was the pioneer in the implementation of nuclear medicine in the eighties with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The nuclear medicine service of the IICS has acted as support for the low-income patients that attend the Clinics Hospital of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the National University of Asuncion (UNA in Spanish) and other institutions of the capital and the countryside, performing bone, thyroid, renal and cardiologic studies together with the radioactive iodine therapy for the treatment of thyroid cancer. In 2014, the IICS will open its new facilities in the campus of the UNA in San Lorenzo, where there will be a modern building infrastructure for the new nuclear medicine service, following national and international guidelines for radiological protection. Through several projects of national and regional technical cooperation of IAEA, human resources were trained abroad, and a SPECT gamma chamber, providing 3-D images, was donated to replace the first plane gamma chamber the IICS had. Thus, many functions of this specialty would be carried out, such as diagnosis, staging, treatment, prognosis and follow-up of diseases prevailing in the country like bone, thyroid, renal, cardiologic, gastric, hematological and oncological metastases. Also, it is anticipated an expansion of the specialty with the use of the hybrid specialties: SPECT/CT, Positron emission tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT) and the use of therapies of radionuclides labeled with monoclonal antibodies and peptides.

Keywords : nuclear medicine; SPECT; PET; radiopharmacy; radiological protection.

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