A dentist’s perspective on scintigraphy about its applications as a diagnostic tool for a myriad of diseases affecting oral health

Abstract

A "branch or specialty of medicine & medical imaging that uses radionuclides and relies on the process of radioactive decay in the diagnosis and treatment of disease" is known as nuclear medicine. Assessing physiologic change, which follows biochemical changes, is made easier with the use of radionuclide imaging, which is sometimes referred to as a functional imaging approach. Scintigraphy is a diagnostic procedure used in nuclear medicine where radioisotopes are administered internally into the body in liquid or gaseous forms, and the distinctive radiation that emerges is captured by external detectors known as gamma cameras, producing two-dimensional pictures. Bone scintigraphy, lymphoscintigraphy, salivary gland scintigraphy, and radio-immuno-scintigraphy are a few examples of scintigraphy techniques.Nuclear imaging has the advantage of giving extremely high levels of diagnostic sensitivity, which is successful in identifying even the smallest pathophysiological changes that are highlighted in the process of diagnosing early-stage to progressive diseases, making it the preferred diagnostic modality.