Medical Tracers

Nuclear medicine is a branch that uses radionuclides in the detection, diagnosis and treatment of diseases with the human body. How is it used in medicine?

Generating radionuclides aka radioisotopes can be done with a nuclear reactor, atom smasher or with accelerators. When a stable atom is charged by bombarding particles - it becomes unstable or radioactive and said to be ‘labeled’ or ‘tagged’. As the radioisotope decays, it will emit alpha, beta or gamma rays, changes it’s nucleus and can last for a few hours or more.

A nuclear medicine technologist and nuclear physician will handle all duties with clients undergoing nuclear medical treatment aka radio therapy. They will be trained in the procedures, operating imaging devices like scintillation cameras and rectilinear scanners, preparing radiopharmaceuticals, quality control procedures, radiation photo films, and use of all knowledge in radiation physics and safety protocols for client, self and co-workers.

Isotopes are injected into clients for sharp visual clarity of specific regions in the body especially useful with bones and hollow organs. Treatment can be external or internal. Internal radiation treatment does leave the client emitting radiation, suffer side effects and poses a threat to others. Water is encouraged to flush the isotope out of the body.

A parent isotope in state of decay is used to produce a radioisotope. A nuclear reactor will produce parent isotopes like molybdenum-99, thallium-201, iridium-192 and technetium-99m but during operation, do create high levels of waste and environmentally non-friendly, storage problems. Highly radioactive spent fuel rods in need of safe storage, a unresolved problem shared with other nations also participating in nuclear energy programs. Where would you store highly radioactive material?

Nuclear fission refers to the process of breaking a heavy nuclei into smaller fragments (splitting) done with energy of neutrons. Cyclotrons aka particle accelerators use artificial transmutation methods with use of magnetic and electric fields to direct the neutron to hit a atom. Only a few isotopes are found to successfully undergo fission.

Artificially produced isotopes through the use of devoted accelerators or radionuclide generators are more cost saving and wouldn’t produce enough nuclear material for military purposes nor be as catastrophically risky to life, as a nuclear reactor. Isotopes have been available since the 1900's before the existence of nuclear reactors. Now, using accelerators would be a cleaner and safer process, don’t you think?

Using low/medium energy radionuclide generators or accelerators aka cyclotrons can produce radioisotopes - further research and development can lead to new and interesting diagnostic tools for the specialized metabolic and molecular imaging necessary in the medical profession.

Radioisotopes are high-demand and priority commodities that are important for the medical industry and a commercial opportunity but why insist on the high cost method?

Read related —> here and there.

Gift Shopping —> here.

I hope you found this article informative. Please feel free to leave your comments and share your own observations plus give your Vote. Send me a email if you have a request on a topic of interest or to say Hello! It’s FREE to join my Fan club, subscribe by Email, RSS Feed, grab my Widget or join me on Hubpages, with a click of your mouse.

Article(C)2011 Dame Scribe, all rights reserved. Dame Scribe creates articles and posts online. She creates articles on business skills & development, health, science, technology and society and has a strong passion for writing.