Use of Nuclear Energy in Medicine

Nuclear radiation plays a major role in medicine as used in diagnosis and in treatment as well, and there is a special section in the hospital nuclear medicine in which radioactive material is used to depict the internal organs of the human body and other types are used to treat cancer.

Treatment depends radioisotope on the affected cells ionizing radiation such as gamma rays , beta and alpha , where living cells are divided at different rates , the cells that are divided by high rates are affected more radiation than cells that divided rates of normal , and therefore they die immediately , which applies to the cancer cells , where treatment is installed radioactive materials in the form of thin wires next to the affected areas , but in the deeper areas are shed radiation by high concentrations and where many of the members of the human body absorbs elements of certain glands, including the thyroid , which absorbs iodine and bone that absorbs phosphorus can be used as a radioactive isotope that absorbs Lists of the patient , thereby acting on the treatment of tumors in that member .

Examples include the use of iodine - 131 to keep track of thyroid tumors, and for that drink Patients solution containing small amounts of sodium iodide and are then track the impact of iodine absorbed by the thyroid gland by screen as a screen TVs can also be used thallium - 201 for the follow-up of heart disease, especially for people who suffer from a heart attack, due to the concentration of thallium in myocardial sound.

Required when using this method of treatment is to have a half-life of the isotope used his short and ends as soon as the completion of the radiation treatment of the tumor.
Is not required in radiation therapy to be issued from within the body, but can be used as radiation from outside the body to deal with internal tumors such as using gamma rays from cobalt-60 isotope for the treatment of cancerous tumors.