The use of Isotopes in medicine - Essay Example

Thus, isotopes are important in the diagnosis of medical conditions, treatment of certain diseases, and sterilization of equipment and products. The diagnosis of the medical conditions utilizes radioisotopes. Technetium-99 is the commonly used radioisotope, and the radiation from the element offers essential information regarding the functioning of specific organs in order to detect any malfunction. The information from the radiation enables the physicians to make accurate and quick diagnosis of the patients’ illness.

Technetium-99 is the most abundant isotope of the radioactive technetium, and can penetrate into the body to provide vital information. Fundamentally, technetium-99 has important characteristics that make it useful in the diagnosis of the medical conditions. Notably, the isotope is metastable. This implies that technetium-99 has excited nucleus that emits the gamma rays to attain stability (Roat-Malone, 2003). Consequently, the emitted gamma rays are significant in medicine because they enable the medical practitioners to image the internal body parts for crucial diagnostic information.

It is noteworthy that the gamma radiations are not harmful to the body. The emitted gamma rays contain ideal energy (140.5 KeV) for the detection with the gamma camera (World Nuclear Association, 2015). Similarly, the half-life of six hours makes the technetium-99 a useful element in the diagnosis of disease. In effect, the decay time is enough for the physicians to conduct any medical test. The use of the technetium-99 in the diagnosis of medical conditions has notable advantages, as well as, disadvantages.

The property of technetium-99 as a pure gamma emitter is important in the analysis of the internal body parts. Gamma radiation produced by the isotope has energy levels that do not harm the human body (Roat-Malone, 2003). Hence, the radiations are safe and do not interfere with the normal