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Cobalt therapy is the medical use of gamma rays from the radioisotope cobalt-60 to treat conditions such as cancer.Beginning in the 1950s, cobalt-60 was widely used in external beam radiotherapy (teletherapy) machines, which produced a beam of gamma rays which was directed into the patient's body to kill tumor tissue.
The physical properties of cobalt such as resistance to bulk oxidation and low solubility in water give some advantages in safety in the case of a containment breach over some other gamma sources such as caesium-137. The main uses for 60 Co are: As a tracer for cobalt in chemical reactions; Sterilization of medical equipment. [8]
The following other wikis use this file: Usage on ar.wikipedia.org كوبالت-60; Usage on ca.wikipedia.org Cobalt 60; Usage on ia.wikipedia.org Cobalt-60; Usage on ms.wikipedia.org Kobalt-60; Usage on pt.wikipedia.org Cobalto-60; Usage on ru.wikipedia.org Кобальт-60; Usage on www.wikidata.org Q932960; Usage on zh.wikipedia.org 鈷-60
Cobalt-60 beam machine from 1951. Cobalt units use radiation from cobalt-60, which emits two gamma rays at energies of 1.17 and 1.33 MeV, a dichromatic beam with an average energy of 1.25 MeV. The role of the cobalt unit has largely been replaced by the linear accelerator, which can generate higher energy radiation.
In addition to their uses in radiography, both cobalt-60 (60 Co) and iridium-192 (192 Ir) are used in the radiotherapy of cancer. Cobalt-60 tends to be used in teletherapy units as a higher photon energy alternative to caesium-137, while iridium-192 tends to be used in a different mode of therapy, internal radiotherapy or brachytherapy.
The Professional Medical Film (PMF) series was a series of technical motion pictures produced by the U.S. Army from the mid-1940s through the late 1960s. The series covered psychiatric, surgical, and tropical medicine, radiation health effects, and other health topics in an American military medicine context. The intended audience was ...
Cobalt-60 (60 Co) is useful as a gamma ray source because it can be produced in predictable quantities, and for its high radioactivity simply by exposing natural cobalt to neutrons in a reactor. [8] The uses for industrial cobalt include: Sterilization of medical supplies and medical waste
A typical cobalt-60 capsule, comprising: (A) An international standard source holder (usually lead), (B) a retaining ring, and (C) a teletherapy "source" composed of (D) two nested stainless steel canisters welded to two (E) stainless steel lids surrounding an (F) internal shield (usually uranium metal or a tungsten alloy) that protects a (G) cylinder of radioactive source material.