Radiopharmaceuticals are used in the field of nuclear medicine as radioactive tracers in medical imaging and in therapy for many diseases (for example, brachytherapy).

In the book Technetium a total of 31 different radiopharmaceuticals based on Tc-99m are listed for imaging and functional studies of the brain, myocardium, thyroid, lungs, liver, gallbladder, kidneys, skeleton, blood and tumors.

These may be roughly divided into two classes: Because radiopharmeuticals require special licenses and handling techniques, they are often kept in local centers for medical radioisotope storage, often known as radiopharmacies.

The International Nonproprietary Name (INN) gives the base drug name, followed by the radioisotope (as mass number, no space, element symbol) in parentheses with no superscript, followed by the ligand (if any).

The United States Pharmacopeia (USP) name gives the base drug name, followed by the radioisotope (as element symbol, space, mass number) with no parentheses, no hyphen, and no superscript, followed by the ligand (if any).