Nuclear Radiation in Medicine

Nuclear Radiation is used to:

- Diagnose patients → Examples: Drinking radioactive iodine to check for problems with the thyroid gland. Scanning patients to check for damage by arthritis and tumours

- Explore internal organs using a tracer

1. The tracer must emit radiation that can pass out of the body and be detected (gamma or beta radiation)

2. The tracer must not be strongly ionising to minimise damage to body tissue

3. The tissue must not decay into another radioactive isotope

4. The tracer must have a short half life

- Control or destroy unwanted tissue → Certain cancers can be destroyed using ionising radiation, called radiotherapy. Gamma rays pass into the body and destroy the tumour

Problem → Radiation may hit healthy tissue

- Radioactive rods → Example: For prostate cancer, the radiation is targeted very precisely to the tumour. There is less damage to tissues