What is cobalt used for in medicine?
Cobalt-60 is widely used as a medical and industrial source of radiation. Medical use consists primarily of cancer radiotherapy. Industrial uses include testing welds and castings and a large variety of measurement and test instruments, such as leveling devices and thickness gauges.
What radioactive isotopes are used in medicine?
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].
Why is cobalt-60 commonly used in radiation therapy?
The Larynx and Hypopharynx Cobalt 60 (60Co) is often the ideal mode of radiation for treating laryngeal cancer. For primary treatment of laryngeal cancer, 60Co allows adequate dosing of the superficial tissues.
What diseases are cured by isotopes of cobalt?
Cobalt therapy is the medical use of gamma rays from the radioisotope cobalt-60 to treat conditions such as cancer. Beginning in the 1950s, cobalt-60 was widely used in external beam radiotherapy (teletherapy) machines, which produced a beam of gamma rays which was directed into the patient’s body to kill tumor tissue.
What is cobalt-59 used for?
It is produced by irradiating the stable isotope cobalt-59 with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. Cobalt-60 is used in the inspection of materials to reveal internal structure, flaws, or foreign objects and in the sterilization of food. In medicine, it is used to treat cancer and to sterilize medical equipment.
What is cobalt used in everyday life?
Currently, the traditional areas of consumption and application of cobalt are mainly battery materials, super heat-resistant alloys, tool steels, hard alloys, magnetic materials; cobalt in the form of compounds is mainly used as catalysts, desiccants, reagents, pigments and dyes.
How is cobalt 60 used in medicine?
What is it used for? Co-60 is used medically for radiation therapy as implants and as an external source of radiation exposure. It is used industrially in leveling gauges and to x-ray welding seams and other structural elements to detect flaws.
What radioisotope is used most widely in medicine?
The radioisotope most widely used in medicine is technetium-99m, employed in some 80% of all nuclear medical procedures. It is an isotope of the artificially-produced element technetium and has almost ideal characteristics for a nuclear medical scan.
How is cobalt-60 used medically?
Co-60 is used medically for radiation therapy as implants and as an external source of radiation exposure. It is used industrially in leveling gauges and to x-ray welding seams and other structural elements to detect flaws. Co-60 also is used for food irradiation, a sterilization process.
Is cobalt therapy still used?
Cobalt-60 technology is currently used to treat roughly 70 per cent of the world’s cancer cases treated by radiation. LHSC’s last Cobalt treatment was delivered in 2004.
Why is cobalt-60 used to sterilize medical equipment?
Cold Process Sterilization The reason why Cobalt-60 is the most suitable for radiation processing is because of the relatively high energy of their gamma rays and fairly long half-life which is 5.27 years.
Where is cobalt-60 used?
What are the uses of cobalt radioisotopes?
Use of cobalt radioisotopes in medicine. Cobalt-60 (Co-60 or 60Co) is a radioactive metal that is used in radiotherapy. It produces two gamma rays with energies of 1.17 MeV and 1.33 MeV. The 60 Co source is about 2 cm in diameter and as a result produces a geometric penumbra, making the edge of the radiation field fuzzy.
What are radioactive isotopes used for in medicine?
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. When a radioactive isotope is added in small amounts to comparatively large quantities….
How is cobalt-60 used in medical devices?
More than 40 per cent of all single-use medical devices produced globally are sterilized with cobalt-60. More than 70 per cent of the world’s supply of cobalt-60 is produced at Canadian nuclear power plants. Canada refines more than 90 per cent of the cobalt-60 market globally.
What is non-radioactive cobalt?
Nonradioactive cobalt occurs naturally in various minerals and has long been used as a blue coloring agent for ceramic and glass. Radioactive Co-60 is produced commercially through linear acceleration for use in medicine and industry.