Radioactivity in Medicine

Consequently, radioactive elements are extensively used in the medical field to conduct research and test for new drugs for the purpose of curing various human diseases. Both the enriched stable isotopes and radioisotopes are essentially important in medicine and are applied in the various stages of disease curing from diagnosis of the disease to the treatment stage (Tuniz). Today, radioactive elements are used all over the world for medical purposes. The high quality of medical services is critical to ensure high standards of human health and quality of life and this would not be possible without the application of radioactive elements. Radioactivity has been used for a long time and its first introduction into the world was in the 19th century and numerous discoveries have been used since then to improve its use in various fields.

Intensity-modulated makes use of a multiple of beams that follow to the shape of a tumor, thus exposing a moderately small portion of normal tissues to ionizing radiation (Chatterjea). This type of radiotherapy is highly specialized technology that uses a greater number of small fields with minute collimators that can block some sections of the treatment field. This, in turn, results in high accuracy where the ionizing radiation is delivered to the tumor alone without affecting the surrounding tissues. Another type of radiotherapy is the particle beam therapy that involves the use of charged particle beams such as proton beams in the treatment of cancer. The energy of the incoming particle determines the depth to which the particles penetrate into the body.

They also help to predict surgery impacts and also assess resulting changes after cure. The quantity of diagnostic radiopharmaceutical administered to a person is only enough to acquire the data needed before it decays. Medically, the radioactivity dose given is inconsequential and therefore no signs of distress are experienced by the patient during the assessment and after a while, no traces are available of the test ever being done. This diagnostic tool is very powerful due to its ability to study the functioning of an organ from outside the body as well as its non-invasive nature. Medical research Radioactive elements such as radioactive isotopes are used in biomedical researches for curing various dreadful disorders like cancer. " Textbook of Medical Biochemistry, 2012, pp.