How is gamma rays used in medicine?
How is gamma rays used in medicine?
Radiation therapy, or radiotherapy, uses high-energy gamma rays to kill cancer cells and shrink tumours. Gamma Knife Radiosurgery is a special form of radiotherapy. It uses beams of gamma rays to treat injured brain tissue by damaging the DNA of dangerous cells.
What are 3 uses for gamma rays?
Gamma rays are used in medicine (radiotherapy), industry (sterilization and disinfection) and the nuclear industry.
What gamma source is used in medicine?
beams of gamma rays, called a gamma knife, can be used to kill the cancerous tumour deep inside the body; these beams are aimed at the tumour from many different directions to maximise the dose on the tumour but to minimise the dose on the surrounding soft tissue.
What are 5 uses of gamma rays?
Uses of Gamma Rays:
- Sterilize medical equipment.
- Sterilize food (irradiated food)
- Used as tracers in medicine.
- Radio Therapy- In oncology, to kill cancerous cells.
- Gamma-Ray Astronomy.
What properties of gamma rays make them useful in medicine?
Gamma-rays have the smallest wavelengths and the most energy of any other wave in the electromagnetic spectrum. These waves are generated by radioactive atoms and in nuclear explosions. Gamma-rays can kill living cells, a fact which medicine uses to its advantage, using gamma-rays to kill cancerous cells.
Why is radiation used in medicine?
Nuclear medicine procedures help detect and treat diseases by using a small amount of radioactive material, called a radiopharmaceutical. Some radiopharmaceuticals are used with imaging equipment to detect diseases. Radiopharmaceuticals can also be placed inside the body near a cancerous tumor to shrink or destroy it.
Why are gamma rays used to treat drinking water?
The use of ionizing radiation results in radiolysis of water and produces hydrated electrons, hydrogen, and hydroxyl free radicals. Strong chemical reactivity of these components results in inactivation of microorganisms and decomposition of pollutants.
How do gamma rays sterilize medical equipment?
Gamma irradiation is a physical/chemical means of sterilization, because it kills bacteria by breaking down bacterial DNA, inhibiting bacterial division. Energy of gamma rays passes through the equipment, disrupting the pathogens that cause contamination.
What kind of radiation is used in nuclear medicine?
A radioisotope used for diagnosis must emit gamma rays of sufficient energy to escape from the body and it must have a half-life short enough for it to decay away soon after imaging is completed. The radioisotope most widely used in medicine is Tc-99, employed in some 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures.
How are gamma rays used to sterilize medical equipment?
Which radiations are mostly used in wastewater treatment?
However, the type of radiation mostly used in the treatment of wastewater is gamma radiation. So in this study, gamma radiation was used in wastewater treatment.