Nuclear Medicine uses tracers with a small amount of radioactivity to diagnose and treat conditions in the body.
What is Nuclear Medicine?
Nuclear Medicine involves giving patients tracers which follow various processes in the body. We can detect the small amount of radiation given off by these tracers outside the body using sensitive gamma cameras and positron emission tomography (PET) scanners, and use this information to create maps of how well that process is working. Larger doses of certain types of tracer can also be used to treat disease.
We offer a full range of diagnostic radionuclide imaging tests on both our Wythenshawe and Central Manchester Sites. From routine bone, heart and kidney scans to more complicated procedures including PET‑CT (cardiac, neurology, paediatric, oncology, infection), white cell labelling, and platelet kinetics. We also provide radionuclide therapy for thyrotoxicosis and synovectomy.
For more information about Nuclear Medicine, please see these pages on the British Nuclear Medicine Society website.
Nuclear Medicine at MFT
The department has its own radiopharmacy where tracers are produced for our own use and for other hospitals elsewhere in the region.
Patients can be scanned using one of the department’s five gamma cameras. Four of the gamma cameras are also capable of single-photon emission tomography (SPECT), and two of these also have integral CT to enable combined SPECT-CT scans. Alternative scans can be acquired using our state-of-the-art combined positron emission tomography (PET) and CT (PET-CT) scanner, which is housed in its own suite within the department.
Children’s imaging is carried out in a dedicated child-friendly area of the department by radiographers and technicians who specialise in children’s imaging, assisted by play specialists. Children are imaged primarily using their own gamma camera but the paediatric team also have access to SPECT-CT and PET-CT as required.
The department aims to provide a timely service with reports available within 24 hours for in-patient studies. A member of the medical staff is always available to discuss individual study requests, advise on the optimal imaging procedure and to discuss results.
We are also active in research, innovation, and teaching. We are constantly developing and improving the service we offer to patients, contributing to the development of new ways of imaging and treating disease, and sharing our expertise through teaching and training.
Your Nuclear Medicine Team
The department is staffed by a friendly and professional multi‑disciplinary team with a wide range of skills which combine to ensure the highest quality of care. The team includes medical doctors, radiographers and technicians, radiopharmacists, physicists, nurses, and secretarial, adminstration and clerical staff.
Key contacts include:
- Dr Parthiban Arumugam – Clinical Director and Consultant Nuclear Medicine Physician
- Dr Neville Wright – Consultant Paediatric Radiologist and Clinical Director, Children’s Radiology
- Mr Andy Bradley – Consultant Physicist, Radiation Protection Advisor, and Acting Directorate Manager
- Dr Bev Ellis – Consultant Radiopharmacist
- Ms Kristina Colligan – Chief Technologist
- Mr Lee Fletcher – Senior Technician, Children’s Nuclear Medicine
- Ms Cordelia Onwukwe – Lead Nurse for Nuclear Medicine
If you wish to contact a specific member of the team, please use the contact details here and we will do our best to answer or re-direct your enquiry.