Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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 are used in the field of nuclear medicine as radioactive tracers in medical imaging and in therapy for many diseases (for example, brachytherapy). Many radiopharmaceuticals use technetium-99m (Tc-99m) which has many useful properties as a gamma-emitting tracer nuclide .
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.
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.
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.
Note that medical isotopes may be not radioactive, for example deuterium (2 H) in deuterated drug. Pages in category "Medical isotopes" The following 34 pages are in this category, out of 34 total.
Copper-64 (64 Cu) is a positron and beta emitting isotope of copper, with applications for molecular radiotherapy and positron emission tomography.Its unusually long half-life (12.7-hours) for a positron-emitting isotope makes it increasingly useful when attached to various ligands, for PET and PET-CT scanning.
The potential applications of this approach are widespread, such as understanding metabolism in biomolecules, environmental pollutants in air, inorganic reaction mechanisms, etc. Clumped isotope analysis, a subset of position-specific isotope analysis, has already proven useful in characterizing sources of methane, paleoenvironment ...