Imaging - Specialist Services

RADIOPHARMACY

The Radiopharmacy Services within Nuclear Medicine Department provides an extensive range of diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals for the Sydney West Area Health Service, Wentworth Area Health Services and The Childrens Hospital at Westmead.

The major components of Radiopharmacy Service are:

To make the commonly known “cold-kits” or the target pharmaceuticals in-house.
To prepare radiolabelled version of cold-kits known as radiopharmaceuticals.
To perform quality control before injecting them into patients.
To be responsible for all in-vivo and in-vitro procedures.

Radioisotopes for Radiopharmacy work is supplied by:

The radioactive Technetium Generator or the “COW” is supplied to us by Australian Nuclear Scientific and Technological Organisation ( ANSTO), Lucas Height.
The COW is milked everyday to get adequate amount of Tc-99m radioactivity for the bulk of procedure within the department.
Other radionuclides include Thallium(Tl-201), Gallium (Ga-67), Iodine (I-123) and various other diagnostic and therapeutic agents for treatment of cancer and other diseases, are supplied by National Medical Cyclotron at Camperdown.

RESEARCH

We are also actively involved in research of international standard. Major projects are in place for developing new radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic and possibly for therapeutic purposes.

We have developed Radiopharmaceuticals for use within the department such as:

Infection imaging agents [Ciprotec]
Tumour diagnostic agents [DMSA (V)]
Clot imaging agents [rTPA]
Brain Imaging Agents [IBZM]

HOURS OF OPERATION

Normal hours of operation are 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday.

FURTHER INFORMATION