Technetium-99m Research Paper

Words: 1122
Pages: 5

A radiopharmaceutical is a radioactive drug used for diagnosis or therapy in a tracer quantity which are known to have no pharmacological effects. It is composed of two parts, first being radionuclide and the second being pharmaceutical. When larger amounts of these are given to treat diseases, it may cause the body to receive different sorts of effects. Some are used in larger amounts to treat diseases such as cancer. For cases such as this, the radioactive agent is taken up by cancerous area which destroys the affected tissues. Because radiopharmaceutical is a very dangerous therapy, it must it must only be given by or under the direct supervision of a doctor with that hold specialised training in nuclear medicine.
Technetium-99m is a commonly used radioactive tracer isotope that is found in Nuclear Medicines due to their gamma ray energy being useful for detection. It is used for scanning of the brain, thyroid, lungs, liver, heart, spleen, kidney and bone marrow. Any sort of rays that are left in the body for too long can cause an affect to the human body, therefor because its physical half-life and its biological half-life short lived, it would means it would be very fast clearing from the body right after the image has been processed. Moreover the gamma is a single energy, that is not gone by beta emission, and that permits more precise alignment of imaging detectors.
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Once that has been produced it starts decaying into technetium-99. So after a while the cartridge will contain a mixture of molybdenum-99, technetium-99m and technetium-99. Because the technetium-99 is fairly stable it is alright for it to be injected into the patient, as it would be safe and