Hal Anger, a nuclear scientist, was the man who invented the gamma camera. Is a medical device, a camera, that is used to look at the internal organs and how they are functioning at the time. He invented it back in the 1950′s and it is still around today, nearly 70 years later.

The gamma camera works by through gamma rays. The patient is given a solution to drink or injected with a solution that contains a low level of radiation that will emit gamma rays. Depending on the organ that is being target to be looked at, a different type of solution is given. The reason for this is because certain types and mixes of the solution will be absorbed by different organs.

Once the solution is in the patient, they are then put under the gamma camera. The first part of the camera to receive the gamma rays coming from the patient is a part called a collimator. Like a colander that strains liquid from the solid, the nuclear medicine collimator on the gamma camera channels all of the gamma rays into the camera head that is full of crystals. What happens from there and how that becomes an image that you can see and make a diagnosis from is some complicated nuclear science stuff that most people do not understand anyways.

All that really matters for most of us is that it works. In particular, because since its invention, the largest success story of the gamma camera is that of the fight against breast cancer. It has been able to detect tumors much sooner, making the odds of survival in breast cancer patients much higher.