Andrey Kaprin: Peaceful atom in the service of medicine
On December 8, 2020, the General meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) was held to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Russian nuclear industry.
RAS full member Andrey Kaprin, General Director of the Federal state budgetary institution "NMIC of radiology" of the Ministry of health of the Russian Federation, made a report on "Nuclear medicine".
The Russian Academy of Sciences President Alexander Sergeev, opening the meeting of scientists, noted that the nuclear industry is not only the industry and technology, but is also a science.
Andrey Kaprin, speaking about the nuclear industry as a whole took into account the history of Russian medical radiology in detail.
- It was a long time ago story and, you see, it sounds now like an amazing story, but a world-famous woman scientist, Marie Curie, once been fascinated by the Russian scientist Vladimir Zykov, gave him a few milligrams of Radium as a souvenir. It happened in year 1903, and by chance, Vladimir used to be Moscow Cancer research center Director at the time, which is now known as P. Hertsen Moscow Oncology Research Institute. And in fact, that was the beginning of the Medical radiology research development in our country.
Along with the scientific research progress and the Soviet nuclear industry development, the medical care system took the best from the "peaceful atom".
New treatment technologies were born: brachytherapy, bone metastasis therapy, radiosinvectomy, radioembolization, radioiodine therapy, PET diagnostics, proton therapy, and much more.
Today, nuclear medicine is considered to be one of the highly potential industries and is becoming more and more popular, especially in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Oncologists around the world are looking forward to influence the tumor with ultra - modern and highly effective methods, and the latest achievements in this field are - radionuclides.
These methods are the most targeted, the most accurate and make it possible to influence a variety of tumor nidus.
In order to do this, a radiopharmaceutical - a "radioactive element" such as iodine-131, strontium or samarium – is to be injected orally or intravenously into the patient's body.
The radioactive element purposefully "searches" for tumor tissue or metastatic lesion, and kills the nuclei of the tumor cell.
Tumor cells are much more active than healthy cells, so they consume more energy, and thus, as a target, attract radiopharmaceuticals that destroy their DNA.
We are proud that such targeted medicines would be produced by the Russian pharmaceutical industry.
Radiopharmaceuticals are used not only for treatment, but also for diagnostics because they identify and "highlight" malignant tumor cells, accumulating in them.
In particular, this technology includes the method of positron emission tomography in the "whole body" mode. Due to the PET/CT procedure, a therapeutic radionuclide is "clung" to the diagnostic radionuclide, which gets into the "highlighted" tumor process (whether it is the tumor itself or its metastasis), and the destruction of the tumor begins. Such a delicate method allows not only to prolong a person's life, but also to improve its quality.
We construct now a preclinical research and testing center for new medicines on the basis of the of A.Tsyb Medical Radiological Research Centre - branch of the National Medical Research Radiological Centre of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, where our scientists will conduct research on new drugs that can be used for radionuclide therapy.
For more details, please, proceed by https://scientificrussia.ru/news/akademik-a-kaprin-o-mirnom-atome-na-sluzhbe-meditsiny
Federal State Budgetary Institution
NMRRC (National Medical Research Radiological Center)
Press Service.
