2023-10-26 17:16:40
The photo comes from spbu.ru.
With information from the Global Energy Association website.-
One of the areas of development of nuclear medicine is radionuclide diagnosis: the patient is injected with radioactive fluorine combined with a glucose molecule. As cancer cells consume glucose, the radioactive element accumulates in the tumor, emitting positrons (the lightest elementary particles with a positive electrical charge), which annihilate when interacting with electrons, emitting two gamma quanta (high-density photons). energy). These gamma rays are then recorded on a special CT scanner, which allows a radionuclide image of the tumor to be obtained. This method is called positron emission tomography.
An alternative is single-photon emission tomography: a special camera records gamma rays emitted by another radioactive element, technetium, which can also be used to obtain a radionuclide image of the tumor. In this case, the use of other types of radiation from the selected radioactive element makes local destruction of cancer cells possible.
“But to produce these radioactive elements it is necessary to carry out nuclear reactions and a target that we irradiate with charged particles such as protons, that is, in our case, a non-radioactive target, which is a highly enriched tin isotope 117 or 119, becomes in radioactive. antimony isotope with the same mass number 117 or 119 respectively ”, quotes Associate Professor Vladimir Zherebchevsky from St. Petersburg State University.
To produce radioactive isotopes of antimony, scientists studied nuclear reactions, using a specially designed target system capable of withstanding high proton fluxes. The authors managed to obtain new data on the probability of nuclear reactions with protons at tin isotopic targets in the region of the maximum. This, in turn, gave them previously unknown information regarding the emission of antimony isotopes from the thick target.
The results of the study can be used in the production of antimony isotopes, which is carried out in medical accelerators in a wide range of energies of the accelerated protons. At the same time, the radioactive antimony obtained is also applicable to theranostics, a new medical trend that involves simultaneous therapy and diagnosis and allows the disease to be combated more quickly and effectively.
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