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A medical isotope is an isotope used in medicine. The first uses of isotopes in medicine were in radiopharmaceuticals , and this is still the most common use. However more recently, separated stable isotopes have come into use.
Radiopharmaceuticals, or medicinal radiocompounds, are a group of pharmaceutical drugs containing radioactive isotopes. Radiopharmaceuticals can be used as diagnostic and therapeutic agents. Radiopharmaceuticals emit radiation themselves, which is different from contrast media which absorb or alter external electromagnetism or ultrasound.
The majority of radiopharmaceuticals are based on proton deficient isotopes, with technetium-99m being the most commonly used medical isotope, and therefore nuclear reactors are the prime source of medical radioisotopes. [2]
Nuclear medicine (nuclear radiology, nucleology), [1] [2] is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging is, in a sense, radiology done inside out , because it records radiation emitted from within the body rather than radiation that is transmitted through ...
They have shorter half-lives than primordial radionuclides. They arise in the decay chain of the primordial isotopes thorium-232, uranium-238, and uranium-235. Examples include the natural isotopes of polonium and radium. Cosmogenic isotopes, such as carbon-14, are present because they are continually being formed in the atmosphere due to ...
Positron emission tomography (PET) [1] is a functional imaging technique that uses radioactive substances known as radiotracers to visualize and measure changes in metabolic processes, and in other physiological activities including blood flow, regional chemical composition, and absorption.
Isotopes of a chemical element differ only in the mass number. For example, the isotopes of hydrogen can be written as 1 H, 2 H and 3 H, with the mass number superscripted to the left. When the atomic nucleus of an isotope is unstable, compounds containing this isotope are radioactive. Tritium is an example of a radioactive isotope.
Technetium-99m (99m Tc) is a metastable nuclear isomer of technetium-99 (itself an isotope of technetium), symbolized as 99m Tc, that is used in tens of millions of medical diagnostic procedures annually, making it the most commonly used medical radioisotope in the world.