What are the medical uses of radioisotopes?

What are the medical uses of radioisotopes?

Radioisotopes in Medicine

• Nuclear medicine uses radiation to provide diagnostic information about the functioning of a person’s specific organs, or to treat them.
• Radiotherapy can be used to treat some medical conditions, especially cancer, using radiation to weaken or destroy particular targeted cells.

What are the isotopes used in medicine?

Common isotopes that are used in nuclear imaging include: fluorine-18, gallium-67, krypton-81m, rubidium-82, nitrogen-13, technetium-99m, indium-111, iodine-123, xenon-133, and thallium-201.

What are 2 uses of radioactivity in medicine?

For example, technetium-99m is used to diagnose bone, heart or other organ problems. Radioactive iodine is used in imaging the thyroid gland. For therapy, radioactive materials are used to kill cancerous tissue, shrink a tumor or reduce pain.

What are the benefits of radioisotopes?

Radioactive isotopes have many useful applications. In medicine, for example, cobalt-60 is extensively employed as a radiation source to arrest the development of cancer. Other radioactive isotopes are used as tracers for diagnostic purposes as well as in research on metabolic processes.

How is Tc99m used in medicine?

Technetium (Tc-99m) is an isotope commonly used in a number of medical diagnostic imaging scans. Tc99m is used as a radioactive tracer for nuclear medicine; which is a form of medical imaging that assesses how particular parts of our body are working or functioning.

How are tracers used in medicine?

Doctors may use radioactive chemicals called tracers for medical imaging. Certain chemicals concentrate in different damaged or diseased parts of the body, and the radiation concentrates with it. it has a short half-life and so decays before it can do much damage.

What are the disadvantages of radioisotopes?

effects: hair loss, skin burns, nausea, gastrointestinal distress, or death (Acute Radiation Syndrome). Long-term health risks include an increased cancer risk. Such risks depend upon the function of the specific radioisotope; and the route, magnitude, and duration of exposure.

What are the risks of using radioisotopes?

Breathing in radioisotopes can damage DNA. Radioactive isotopes can sit in the stomach and irradiate for a long time. High doses can cause sterility or mutations. Radiation can burn skin or cause cancer.

Why is technetium made in hospitals?

Tc-99m is radioactive because one or more of the protons and neutrons in its nucleus is in an excited state. Hospitals cannot run their own nuclear reactors and so they rely on technetium generators – machines that produce Tc-99m from the decay of its parent isotope molybdenum-99.

How are radioisotopes used in the medical field?

Gamma camera can accurately detect disease progression and staging in vital organs. American Nuclear Society 2 Over 10,000 hospitals worldwide use radioisotopes in medicine, and about 90 percent of the procedures are for diagnosis.

How are radioactive products used in nuclear medicine?

This process is known as radioactive decay. Radioactive products which are used in medicine are referred to as radiopharmaceuticals. This is a branch of medicine that uses radiation to provide information about the functioning of a person’s specific organs or to treat disease.

How are radioisotopes used to treat thyroid cancer?

This radioisotope preferentially lodges in the thyroid. The beta emissions of this radioisotope subsequently target and destroy the cancer in the thyroid. External radiationtherapy uses an external beam of radiation to focus on cancerous growths.

What are the different types of radioactive isotopes?

Artificial radioactive isotopes can be grouped into radioactive isotopes arising from nuclear power generation, radioactive isotopes produced for medicine, industry, or radioactive isotopes arising from nuclear experiments. Radioactive material is a material that emits radiation a, b, g or neutron.