Cancer Treatment

Alpha radiation is used to treat various forms of cancer. This process, called
unsealed source radiotherapy, involves inserting tiny amounts of radium-226 into
cancerous organs. The alpha particles destroy cancer cells but lack the penetrating
ability to damage the surrounding healthy cells.

Static Eliminator
Alpha radiation from polonium-210 is used to eliminate static electricity in
industrial applications. The positive charge of the alpha particles attracts free
electrons, thus reducing the potential for local static electricity. This process is
common in paper mills, for example. Smoke particles disrupt this current,
triggering an alarm.

Pacemaker Battery
Alpha radiation is used as an energy source to power heart pacemakers. Plutonium238 is used as the fuel source for such batteries; with a half-life of 88 years, this
source of power provides a long lifespan for pacemakers.

Industrial tracers - Finding leaks and blockages

A leak or blockage in a pipe may be difficult to find, particularly if the pipe is
buried underground. Substances that emit gamma radiation are often used as
tracers because the radiation easily passes through many substances.
To find a leak or blockage, the radioactive material is put into one end of the pipe. A
radiation detector outside the pipe or above ground is used to track its progress
through the pipe. The leak or blockage is discovered by finding where amount of
radiation
detected decreases.

Dating rocks
Radioactivity can be used to date rocks.
Rocks often contain traces of uranium. This is unstable and eventually decays to
lead, which is stable. The age of a rock can
be calculated if its ratio of uranium to lead is known.
The older the rock, the lower its uranium to lead ratio: Young rocks
have a high uranium to lead ratio
Very old rocks have a low uranium to lead ratio
The table shows how this works.

Time

Percent of uranium Percent of

Uranium:lead ratio
lead

0
100
After 1 half-life 50
After 2 half-life 25
After 3 half-life 12.5

0
50
75
87.5

1:0
1:1
1:3
1:7

The half-life of uranium is 4.46 billion years. If a rock has a

uranium to lead ratio of 1:1, one half-life must have passed since it formed. This
would make it 4.46 billion years old.

Smoke Detector
Alpha radiation is used in some smoke detectors. The alpha particles from
americium-241 bombard air molecules, knocking electrons free. These electrons
are then used to create an electrical current.

Carbon dating
Materials that originally came from living things, such as wood and natural fibres, can
be dated by measuring the amount of carbon-14 they contain.
For example, in 1991, two hikers discovered a mummified man, preserved for
centuries in the ice on an alpine mountain. Later called tzi the Iceman, small
samples from his body were carbon dated by scientists. The results showed that tzi
died over 5000 years ago, sometime between 3350 and 3100 BC.

Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope. It is found in the air in carbon dioxide molecules.

The amount of carbon-14 in the air has stayed the same for thousands of years.
There is a small amount of radioactive carbon-14 in all living organisms because it
enters the food chain.
Once an organism dies, it stops taking in carbon-14. The carbon14 it contained at the time of death decays over a long period of time, and the
radioactivity of the material decreases.
The approximate time since the organism died can be worked out by measuring the
amount of carbon-14 left in its remains compared to the amount in living organisms.

Metal Thickness monitoring

Most Beta particles are stopped by a few mm or cm of solid materials. The thicker the
layer the more beta radiation is absorbed. A beta source is placed on one side of a
sheet of material. A detector (e.g. a Geiger counter) is put on the other side and can
monitor how much radiation gets through. The signal size depends on thickness of the
sheet and it gets smaller as the sheet gets thicker. Therefore the signal can be used to
monitor the sheet thickness. The half-life must be quite long so that change in the
signal does not result from rapid decay.
This idea is used to control production lines of paper, plastic or steel sheeting.
Before the sheet material passes through
'flattening' rollers, it passes between a beta source and detector. The detector signal
is checked against that for a preset thickness. If the signal is too big the sheet is too
thin and the rollers are moved apart to thicken the sheet. If the signal is too small the
sheet is too thick and the rollers are moved closer together.

Medical tracers
Technetium-99 is a gamma emitter (half-life 6 hours) and is used in medicine as a
tracer.
In medical applications, in a suitable chemical form, the radioisotope is injected
into the body and its 'movement' can be followed.
Time is allowed for the radioactive tracer to spread and its progress tracked
with a detector outside the body.
The patient can be placed next to a 'detection screen' that shows
where the radioactive tracer is.

The effective function of organs like the liver and digestion system can be checked.
Similarly, a patient can breathe in air with a gaseous gamma emitter in it, and the
effectiveness and structure of the lungs can be checked.
The half-life must be relatively short so it does not linger in the body increasing
the harmful effects of cell damage. Technetium atoms can be incorporated into
many organic chemicals called radiopharmaceuticals which can be used to
monitor biochemical aspects of the bodies chemistry e.g. the functioning and
performance of a particular organ.

Radiotherapy
It seems ironic that the very radiation which causes cancer, can also be used to
treat it. A beam of gamma radiation is directed onto the tumour site to kill the
cancer cells. Unfortunately the
radiation passes through the 'good' tissue too and kills or damages
'good' cells. Modern techniques use multiple rotating gamma sources that are focused
on to the tumour. This means the surrounding 'good cells' are less frequently hit and
minimises potential harmful side-effects on the rest of the body (e.g. sickness
or other mutations). Radiotherapy also avoids the need for intrusive surgery
which has its own risk factors. The gamma
emitters used have relatively long half-lives to give the instrument a good working
life.

Non-destructive testing (NDT)

In a sense it is an alternative to X-ray photography for more dense materials e.g.
It is used test the structure and quality of pipe welds.
A gamma source is placed inside the pipe and photographic paper wrapped around the
weld.
If there is any gap or flaw in the weld, more gamma radiation gets through and
shows up as increased exposure on the 'gamma-ray picture'.
It s better to find out the fault now, rather than later when it fractures, and has to be
'dug up' or retrieved from the bottom of the
sea!

Sterlisation
Because gamma radiation is so deadly and penetrating it can be used to sterilise
surgical equipment or packaged food:
The radiation is deadly for bacteria even in the most microscopic pockets of
apparently smooth and shiny stainless steel of surgical instruments.
It is very convenient for 'convenience' food!. After cooking and sealing in a plastic
packet, you don't need to reopen to complete the sterilization to give it a long shelflife!

Thyroid function
Iodine-131, another gamma emitter (half-life = 8 days), can be used to check on the
functioning of a thyroid gland. The body needs iodine to make the hormone thyroxine
and so the take up of iodine can be monitored by measuring the gamma radiation
from the thyroid gland. Gamma radiation, being the most penetrating, it passes out
through the body and so readily be detected outside
the body by some suitable detector e.g. with a special camera or fluorescent screen.

The half-life should be long enough to allow good detection BUT NOT too long to
be dangerous to the body over a period of time!

Thyroid cancer treatment

One method of treating thyroid cancer is to inject Iodine-131 into the body in a
soluble salt form e.g. potassium iodide, so that it deliberately concentrates in the
thyroid gland and the gamma radiation kills the thyroid cancer cells.
This is another example of 'medical physics' and important diagnostic
technique in clinical medicine.
Beta sources can be used, though not as penetrating as gamma and have an
increased risk of cell damage..
Alpha sources are too readily absorbed to show up with a Geiger counter or other
detector and so are not suitable for these 'tracer'
applications.
However, an alpha particle emitting isotope of radium can be directly injected in
tiny quantities into tumourous tissue to directly irradiate and kill cancer cells.

Maintenance of Stents
Radioisotopes -- chemicals that emit radiation -- are widely used in medicine. In a
process known as brachytherapy, beta
radioisotopes can be used to irradiate areas inside a patient to prevent the growth of
certain tissues. This approach has been used successfully to prevent the clogging of
arterial inserts called
stents. Beta particles are also used in some forms of therapy to kill cancer cells. In
addition, the emission of beta particles is used indirectly in the medical scanning
technique known as positron
emission tomography (PET).

Biological Tracers
Radioisotopes are commonly used as tracers in chemical and biological research.
By synthesizing molecules containing a radioactive atom, the path and fate of that
type of molecule in a particular reaction or metabolic process can be followed by
tracking the radioactive signal of the isotope. One radioisotope used for this
process is carbon-14 which can be inserted into organic or biological molecules
and followed by its beta radiation signal.

Measuring thickness
Beta rays have a number of important uses in industrial processes. Since they can pass
through some materials, they are used to gauge the thickness of films of material
coming off production lines such as paper and plastic film. A similar process checks
the integrity of sewn seams in textiles. In another application, the thickness of various
coatings, such as paints, can be deduced
from the activity of beta particles scattered back from that surface.

In the paper industry, promethium-147, which is a beta emitter, is used as a source

for measuring the thickness of paper. The paper can pass freely between the units in
such apparatuses and measurements may be made continually.