HCM CITY — City Paediatrics Hospital in HCM City’s Bình Chánh District has set up the first nuclear medicine unit for treating children in the south.

On March 6 and 7 doctors at the hospital performed nuclear medicine imaging on 15 child patients with renal diseases like hydronephrosis, which is the swelling of a kidney due to a build-up of urine and happens when the urine cannot move from the kidney to the bladder because of a blockage or obstruction, and diseases related to bones.

They performed it with assistance from Chợ Rẫy Hospital doctors and Taiwanese experts.

The technique uses radiopharmaceuticals known as radioactive tracers to examine the function and structure of organs and tissue more accurately than traditional imaging methods like CT Scan, MRI, and X-ray.

According to RadiologyInfo.org of the Radiological Society of North America, radioactive tracers are typically injected into the bloodstream, inhaled or swallowed. They travel to the area being examined and give off energy in the form of gamma rays, which are detected by a special camera and a computer to create images of the inside of the body.

According to the hospital’s Facebook page, nuclear medicine is used mostly for diagnosis of thyroid cancer and evaluation of kidney functions.

The hospital will use it for diagnosis of cardiovascular, digestive, and nervous ailments and others.

Dr Nguyễn Xuân Cảnh, the consultant at the hospital’s nuclear medicine unit, said paediatrics hospitals in the city take an average of 10 patients daily to Chợ Rẫy Hospital for nuclear medicine.

But since March 6 its patients are no longer taken to Chợ Rẫy, he said.

In the past there were worries about using radioactive medicine on children, but research showed its radioactive dose is lower than that of X-rays.

In Việt Nam, many central-level hospitals such as Chợ Rẫy, Bạch Mai in Hà Nội and others have developed nuclear medicine units with modern equipment. —VNS