Radioactive substances in medicine 1 Flashcards
What are two applications for non-essential (toxic) elements in medicine
- Therapeutic drugs to treat a disease
- Diagnostic imaging agents
What is theranostics
- Combines treatment with diagnostics
What was discovered from Radon miners
- Lung cancer risk associated with U mining is result of exposure to Rn gas and Po-218 and Po-210 which are alpha emitters
- Alpha emitters interact with superficial tissues of lungs
What are two examples of toxicity of radiometals
- Plutonium
- Polonium-210
Describe how plutonium is an example of the toxicity of radiometals
- f-block element; Pu(IV) mimics Fe(III) in terms of similar charge/radius ratio, Eo
- Often binds more strongly due to high charge (+4)
- Fe(III) is a biologically important species which often goes into deeper tissues of biomolecules
- Alpha decay of Pu-235 (t1/2 2.86 years) leads to destruction of surrounding tissue
Describe how polonium-210 is an example of the toxicity of radiometals
- A deadly alpha emitter
- Group 16 with S which is in cysteine
- Mimics S, Se,Te
- Half life 138.4 years
What is way of treating Polonium or plutonium toxicity
- Chelation therapy
- treatment with siderophores, DesFerriOxamine (DFO)
- Chelator binds strongly to Fe3+
- So also binds to Pu or Po and excretes
What are medical applications of ionising radiation for diagnostics
- X-rays
- Nuclear medicine - SPECT
- Positron Emission Tomography - PET
What isotopes are used for SPECT
- 99mTC - most common
- 201TI
- 111In
- 123I - most common
What isotopes are used for PET
- 18F - Most common
- 68Ga
- 89Zr
- 64Cu
What are medical applications of ionising radiation for diagnostics
- X-rays
- Radioisotopes
What radioisotopes are used for therapeutics
- Brachytherapy- 137Cs, 192Ir, 226Ra
- Tele-therapy- 60Co
- Radiopharmaceuticals- 90Y, 131I, 89Sr, 153Sm, 177Lu, 188Re, 186Re
What is nuclear medicine
- A field of science that uses the nuclear properties of matter in medical diagnostics and therapy
- In diagnosis (radiology), radioactive substances (radiopharmaceuticals) are administered to patients and the radiation emitted is measured (imaged)
- Radiation therapy is the medical use of ionising radiation as part of cancer treatment
What kind of scans are there
- CT- computed tomography- x-ray base; MRI
- SPECT- single photon emission computed tomography
- PET- positron emission tomography
What is used for MRI as a contrast agent and problem
- Gd(III) - non radioactive
- But partly retained in the brain
What is alternative to Gd(III) for MRI
- Gamma emitting (99mTc, 111ln)
- Or positron emitting (64Cu, 68Ga, 89Zr)
- Deemed to be less harmful than Gd
What are examples of radioactive isotopes used for radiotherapy for cancer treatment
- I
- Cu
- Re
- Y
Contrast resolution for different types of molecular imaging
- CT/x-ray and US: give good detail about anatomy and physiology of tissue
- MRI: Just enough resolution to understand metabolism- how tissue is affected by disease but doesn’t contrast well so better for physiology
- PET/NM- good for metabolism and molecular level- good for understanding of onset of disease
- Optical- problems as more invasive
- Molecular imaging- allows proteins and genome to be seen