What are isotope treatments and how are they used?
What are isotope treatments used for? In radionuclide or radioisotope therapy (also known as radiopharmaceutical therapy and molecular radiotherapy), a radioactive substance administered to the patient intravenously or orally is taken up by the targeted organ or tissue via normal metabolism and radiates locally there for a relatively short period.
Can isotopes deliver a knockout punch to tumor cells?
— Argonne deputy program manager Dave Rotsch. One way to deliver a knockout punch to tumor cells is to use medical isotopes or radionuclides — radiologically active atoms that can provide a highly targeted dose directly at a tumor site.
What are radioisotopes?
Radioisotopes are unstable atomic isotopes that give off radiation spontaneously. They can be measured by a suitable apparatus at amounts as small as one-billionth of a gram. Thus, they can be safely used in small amounts as in the body. [1]
What are the best books on radioisotopes in medicine?
[2] A. N. H. Creager, Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine(University of Chicago Press, 2013). [3] J. V. Frangioni, "New Technologies for Human Cancer Imaging," J. Clin. Oncol. 26, 4012 (2008). [4] E. B. Silberstein, "Cancer Diagnosis: The Role of Tumor-Imaging Radiopharmaceuticals," Am. J. Med. 60, 226 (1976).
Why are isotopes used to treat cancer?
As the radioisotope begins to decay, it affects the targeted tissue or tumor because cancer cells absorb more of the radioisotope than noncancer cells do. The higher dose of radiation eventually destroys the cancer cells.
Which isotopes used to cure cancer?
Cobalt-60 is most commonly used.
What is the importance of isotopes in medicine?
Medical isotopes are used by medical professionals to diagnose and treat health conditions such as heart disease and cancer. The production of medical isotopes is achieved by using two overarching technologies: nuclear reactors, and particle accelerators (linear accelerators, cyclotrons).
What is the importance of isotopes in disease diagnosis and treatment?
Radioisotopes are an essential part of medical diagnostic procedures. In combination with imaging devices which register the gamma rays emitted from within, they can be used for imaging to study the dynamic processes taking place in various parts of the body.
What isotope is used for radiation therapy?
By implanting radioactive sources directly into the tumor it is possible to deliver high-dose radiation to small tumors. The isotopes most commonly used in IRT are iridium-192 or iodine-125. Iridium (half-life 74 days), usually in the form of a wire, is used as a removable source.
What are the benefits of isotopes?
Radioactive isotopes have many useful applications. In medicine, for example, cobalt-60 is extensively employed as a radiation source to arrest the development of cancer. Other radioactive isotopes are used as tracers for diagnostic purposes as well as in research on metabolic processes.
Which radioactive isotopes can be beneficial in diagnosing and treating diseases?
The most common radioisotopes used in the medical industry are Technetium-99m, Iodine-131, and Molybdenum-99. 85% of all nuclear medical examinations use Mo/Tc generators for diagnosing problems with the liver, bones, or lungs [6].
What do you think are the isotopes that are most useful Why?
“Carbon-14, perhaps the most important isotope to life on Earth, was 'born'.” Carbon-14 has six protons and eight neutrons in its nucleus. By contrast, most of the carbon in our bodies and in the outside world, known as carbon-12, has six protons and six neutrons.
Which isotope is used for diagnosis of tumors in body?
Phosphorus-32 is useful in the identification of malignant tumours because… …radionuclides suitable for metabolic studies, iodine-131 is one of the most widely used.
What is the radionuclide used for bone metastases?
At Docrates, the radionuclide therapy of bone metastases is based on tracers that are taken up by the accelerated metabolism of bone forming cells in the close vicinity of the bone metastases. We have in use the alpha radiator Ra-223 (radium), which treats bone metastases locally based on the increased metabolism of calcium in the bone metastasis, and beta radiator Sm-153 (samarium), whose effect is based on locally increased phosphorus metabolism in the bone metastasis.
What is radionuclide therapy?
In radionuclide or radioisotope therapy (also known as radiopharmaceutical therapy and molecular radiotherapy), a radioactive substance administered to the patient intravenously or orally is taken up by the targeted organ or tissue via normal metabolism and radiates locally there for a relatively short period.
How to treat neuroendocrine tumors?
Rare neuroendocrine tumors can be treated by short-range radiation from a peptide that is readily taken up by cancer tissue. The most common form of radionuclide therapy is the use of radioactive iodine in thyroid cancer, where even the cancer metastases collect iodine and shrink in size as their cells are locally destroyed by short-range radiation. Pain caused by bone metastases can be treated using short-range radiopharmaceuticals that are taken up by bone. Radionuclide therapy is currently included in the Nordic treatment guidelines for neuroendocrine tumors. Very recently, radionuclide therapies have been introduced in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, liver cancer and prostate cancer, for example.
What is the radiation effect?
The radiation effect is utilised both for diagnostic and radiotherapy purposes. The impact of radionuclide therapy is based on the local radiation impact of a radioactive substance taken up by cancer cells, destroying the tumor cells. The formation of a combination that is taken up by the tumor and destroys cancer cells is always an individually ...
Can cancer tracers be used for targeted radionuclide therapy?
This is due to the fact that an increasing number of cancer tracers have been identified that allow the use of targeted radionuclide therapy. Lymphomas, for instance, can be treated with radiolabelled antibodies that are taken up by cancer tissue and destroy it by means of radiation and antibody formation.
Is radionuclide therapy good for leukemia?
The potential of radionuclide therapy to treat certain rarer solid tumors (e.g. feocromocytomas and neuroblastomas) and haematological conditions (e.g. leukemia), as well as in intracavitary and intravascular treatments, has been known for some time, but the number of patients treated has been small.
Is radionuclide therapy a neuroendocrine therapy?
Radionuclide therapy is currently included in the Nordic treatment guidelines for neuroendocrine tumors. Very recently, radionuclide therapies have been introduced in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, liver cancer and prostate cancer, for example. At Docrates, the radionuclide therapy of bone metastases is based on tracers ...
What are theragnostic isotopes?
When added into new generations of medicines that contain medical isotopes, or radiopharmaceuticals, that selectively seek out cancer cells, or that provide additional benefits in radiotherapy, these theragnostic isotopes will give doctors more options in the fight against disease and will ultimately give patients more hope.
What happens when a target mass is converted to an isotope of interest?
Only a small fraction of the target mass is converted to the isotope of interest, which means that the target can be used over and over again.
What is the role of radionuclides in cancer?
The first is diagnostic, where the radioisotope allows doctors to visualize a tumor's precise location and contours within the body with greater clarity than an MRI scan provides. Another is therapeutic, where doctors use the radionuclide to deliver cancer-killing radiation directly to tumor cells. The third is theragnostic, which combines the power of both in such a way that the theragnostic radionuclide agent allows a doctor to both visualize and treat a tumor simultaneously.
How to deliver a knockout punch to tumor cells?
One way to deliver a knockout punch to tumor cells is to use medical isotopes or radionuclides—radiologically active atoms that can provide a highly targeted dose directly at a tumor site. While not applicable for all cancers, targeted radionuclide therapy is providing doctors with a new weapon in their arsenal against cancer. ...
What is radiopharmaceutical?
Radiopharmaceuticals allow doctors to observe a tumor's uptake of a diagnostic version of the radiopharmaceutical. Based on these results, Rotsch explained, the doctor can more effectively develop and prescribe a treatment plan with a therapeutic or theragnostic radiopharmaceutical.
What is the facility that produces radioisotopes?
One key facility involved in producing radioisotopes is Argonne's Low-Energy Accelerator Facility (LEAF). To make medical isotopes, the LEAF delivers a powerful beam of electrons, which are converted to gamma rays, which are highly energetic photons, or packets of light.
What is the target material of gamma rays?
These gamma rays, in turn, strike a highly pure, stable target material, like zinc-68. The resulting photo-nuclear reaction ejects one or more protons or neutrons to make the desired radioisotope: copper-67 in this case.
How is radiation used to treat cancer?
However, by far the most important therapeutic technique is teletherapy (or beam therapy) in which the source of radiation remains outside the body and the beam of radiation is directed at the tumor through the overlying tissue. The source of radiation may be an X-ray tube, a "supervoltage" machine such as a betatron or a linear accelerator, or a radioisotope which emits high energy gamma-rays. The two isotopes commonly used for this purpose are cobalt-60 and cesium-137.
What is the most important item of dosimetric data?
One of the most important items of dosimetric data is the isodose chart , a kind of contour map which shows how the dose of radiation varies from point to point under stated conditions. Hundreds of such charts have been measured or computed in advanced radiotherapy institutes, but the task is beyond the capacity of the majority of centers. Obviously there is a need for this kind of material to be collected, systematiz ed, catalogued and redistributed on a world wide scale. The problem was examined in detail by an international panel of experts which met in Vienna in November 1960. Prior to this meeting a standard questionnaire was sent (through the co-operation of several national associations of medical physicists) to a large number of radiotherapy centers in many countries. Not only the answers to the questionnaire, but examples of isodose charts from different centers were brought to the Vienna meeting by the participants. The recommendations of the panel have recently been published by the Agency under the title "Therapeutic Dose Distributions with High Energy Radiation". It was suggested that the Agency should publish atlases of isodose charts under 3 main divisions, viz: single fields, multiple fields and moving beams. The preparation of these publications is now well advanced, material having been collected from all over the world, and they should be available in 1962. Associated with the atlases there is to be an "international Catalogue of Single Field Isodose Charts" and provisional copies of this have already been sent out, for comment and correction, to the contributing radiotherapy centers.
