Medical Contamination

Medical Contamination: 1) Radioactive source (technetium-99) injected, used as tracers to make softer tissue (blood vessels, kidney) show up through medical imaging processes. An isotope that emits gamma rays, which easily pass through body to a detector (e.g. x-ray/gamma camera). The radioactive isotope can be followed as it flows through a particular process in the body. 2) Changes in amount of gamma emitted from different parts, indicate how well isotopes are flowing or if there's a block. 3) Isotopes chosen must: - Have very short half-lives - sources used typically have half-lives of hours so after a couple of days there will hardly be any radioactive material left in a person’s body - Not be poisonous