Radiation positron emission

Mysteries such as this attract young people to science. Nuclear physics, however, tends to turn people off Nuclear power plant malfunctions and atomic bombs are frightening. Nevertheless, humankind has greatly benefited from scientific investigations of the nucleus. Science s hard-won knowledge of the atomic nucleus is used extensively in medicine, from imaging procedures such as positron emission tomography (PET) to radiation therapy, which has saved the lives of many cancer patients. 

Nuclear medicine is used chiefly in medical diagnosis. A radiopharmaceutical—a relatively harmless compound with a low dose of radiation— is swallowed or injected into the patient and tracked through the bloodstream by instruments such as a PET (positron emission tomography) camera. The nuclear physician can use the results to create a... 

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Studying these isotopes provides fertile ground for physicists and chemists to gain a better understanding of the properties and behavior of nuclei. This field of research also has important applications. For example, radioisotopes—radioactive isotopes—that emit certain particles are critical in some medical treatments such as radiation therapy, which is used to kill cancer cells, and positron emission tomography (PET), which is extremely useful in imaging parts of the body. 

Radioactivity is the spontaneous emission of radiation from an unstable nucleus. Alpha (a) radiation consists of helium nuclei, small particles containing two protons and two neutrons (fHe). Beta (p) radiation consists of electrons ( e), and gamma (y) radiation consists of high-energy photons that have no mass. Positron emission is the conversion of a proton in the nucleus into a neutron plus an ejected positron, e or /3+, a particle that has the same mass as an electron but an opposite charge. Electron capture is the capture of an inner-shell electron by a proton in the nucleus. The process is accompanied by the emission of y rays and results in the conversion of a proton in the nucleus into a neutron. Every element in the periodic table has at least one radioactive isotope, or radioisotope. Radioactive decay is characterized kinetically by a first-order decay constant and by a half-life, h/2, the time required for the... 

Within the radiation emission tracking techniques, there are two main variants positron emission, in which the tracer position is determined by triangulation as described in Section 2, and the "proximity" techniques, in which a gamma emitter is placed within the system of interest and its position found by measuring the relative count rates in an array of detectors. An example of the latter is computer-automated radioactive... 

The type of decay of the radiopharmaceutical should also be adequate for its intended use. Diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals should decay by y emission, electron capture, or positron emission, and never emit a or even [I particles. On the contrary, therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals should decay by a or p emission because the intended effect is in fact radiation damage to specific cells. 

The mean positron emission energy of 18F is just 0.64 MeV (the lowest of all positron emitters with chnical use) and this has several important consequences The dose of radiation received by the patient will be lower and the distance between disintegration of the radionuclide and the annihilation site (after colhsion of the positron with an electron) is reduced, thus making PET images with higher resolution possible. 

It is of great interest to note that after Cherry s observation of positron emission from a solid surface the first beam system—developed in the late 60 s—was based at a LINAC facility [15]. Bremsstrahlung gamma radiation from the energetic (50MeV) LINAC electrons create electron-positron pairs in a Ta target the fast positrons thus created are then moderated (see section 8) to form the slow positron beam. The efficiency of this process clearly depends on the LINAC electron energy and the thickness of the converter. 

The positron has a short life and will quickly be annihilated in a reaction with an electron, producing y-photons of characteristic energy (0.51 MeV). In addition, the basic nuclear process itself is usually accompanied by the emission of gamma radiation. As in the case of negatron decay a complete energy balance reveals a discrepancy which can be accounted for if the emission of a further particle—the neutrino, v is postulated. Overall, positron emission can be summarized in a general equation... 

Cobalt-60 is used for radiation treatments of certain cancers. It decays by positron emission. Write a nuclear equation for the reaction. 

Dogs exposed to radium to establish coefficients for plutonium produced data that showed the best way to translate data to humans was to use a two-mutation model to calculate radiation risks to supplement published risk estimates (Bijwaard, 2006 Bijwaard and Dekkers, 2007). The total exposure resulting from a 5 mGi administration of 18F fluoroethyl cyanophenoxy methyl piperidine 18F SFE as a tracer show it to be safe in human positron emission tomography (PET) imaging studies (Waterhouse et al, 2006). 

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