Medical radioisotopes (RI) are divided into diagnosis and therapy depending on the energy of extinction. Diagnostic radioisotopes emit gamma rays with characteristics to penetrate substances, allowing them to image their location in vivo, and therapeu...
Medical radioisotopes (RI) are divided into diagnosis and therapy depending on the energy of extinction. Diagnostic radioisotopes emit gamma rays with characteristics to penetrate substances, allowing them to image their location in vivo, and therapeutic radioisotopes kill cancer cells by emitting beta rays or alpha rays with particle characteristics. Diagnostic RI is mainly produced using cyclotron and can be used as ¹PET and ²SPECT in medical fields. PET RI has a higher resolution than SPECT RI due to annihilation radiation from positron. On the other hand, therapeutic RI have mainly two kind of things. One is beta emitters which have a low linear energy transfer (LET) of 0.2 keV/mm and a path length of 1 to 10 mm and beta emission may reach throughout the tumor and surrounding healthy tissue. The other, alpha emitters have a high LET (80‐100 keV/μm) and a path length of 50 to 90 μm, which corresponds to a few cell diameters. Medical radioisotopes have been produced by cyclotron and Reactor. Accelerated particles have been irradiated on target materials which is converted into radioactive isotope through nuclear reaction. It is separated by chromatography and confirmed radionuclidic purity with HPGe detector.
¹PET : Positron Emission Tomography
²SPECT : Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography