Medical isotopes

Deuterium (hydrogen-2, symbol H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen; the other is protium, or hydrogen-1, H. The deuterium nucleus (deuteron) contains one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more common H has no neutrons.

Carbon-13 (13C) is a natural, stable isotope of carbon with a nucleus containing six protons and seven neutrons. It constitutes about 1.07% of natural carbon and is one of the so-called environmental isotopes.

Iodine-131 (131I, I-131) is a radioisotope of iodine discovered by Glenn Seaborg and John Livingood in 1938 at the University of California, Berkeley. It has a radioactive decay half-life of about eight days. It is associated with nuclear energy, medical diagnostic and treatment procedures, and natural gas production. It also plays a major role as a radioactive isotope present in nuclear fission products, and was a significant contributor to the health hazards from open-air atomic bomb testing in the 1950s, and from the Chernobyl disaster, as well as being a large fraction of the contamination

Technetium-99m (99mTc) is a metastable nuclear isomer of technetium-99 (itself an isotope of technetium), symbolized as 99mTc, that is used in tens of millions of medical diagnostic procedures annually, making it the most commonly used medical radioisotope in the world.

Fluorine-18 (18F, also called radiofluorine) is a fluorine radioisotope which is an important source of positrons. Its half-life is 109.734 minutes, less than two hours, and one of the shortest of radioisotopes with use outside research. It decays by positron emission 96.7% of the time and electron capture 3.3% of the time. Both modes of decay yield stable oxygen-18.

Iodine-123 (123I) is a radioactive isotope of iodine used in nuclear medicine imaging, including single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) or SPECT/CT exams. The isotope's half-life is 13.223 hours; the decay by electron capture to tellurium-123 emits gamma radiation with a predominant energy of 159 keV (this is the gamma primarily used for imaging). In medical applications, the radiation is detected by a gamma camera. The isotope is typically applied as iodide-123, the anionic form.

Yttrium-90 () is a radioactive isotope of yttrium. Yttrium-90 has found a wide range of uses in radiation therapy to treat some forms of cancer. It is sometimes called radioyttrium (as might be other radioisotopes of the element).

REDIRECT Isotopes of carbon#Carbon-11

Radium-223 (223Ra, Ra-223) is an alpha-emitting isotope of radium with half-life 11.435 days. It was discovered in 1905 by T. Godlewski, a Polish chemist from Kraków, and was historically known as actinium X (AcX). Radium-223 dichloride is an alpha particle-emitting radiotherapy drug that mimics calcium and forms complexes with hydroxyapatite at areas of increased bone turnover. The principal use of radium-223, as a radiopharmaceutical to treat metastatic cancers in bone, takes advantage of its chemical similarity to calcium, and the short range of the alpha radiation it emits.

Phosphorus-32 (32P) is a radioactive isotope of phosphorus, containing one more neutron than the common and stable isotope of phosphorus, phosphorus-31.

Strontium-89 () is a radioactive isotope of strontium with a half-life of 50.56 days. It undergoes β− decay (with practically no gamma rays) into yttrium-89. Strontium-89 has application in medicine. It is also a fission product, but is produced technically by neutron capture on ordinary strontium.

Copper-64 (Cu) is a positron and beta emitting isotope of copper (exhibiting both forms of beta decay), with applications in molecular radiotherapy and positron emission tomography. Its unusually long half-life (12.7 hours) for a positron-emitting isotope makes it increasingly useful when attached to various ligands for PET and PET-CT scanning.

Iodine-125 (125I) is a radioisotope of iodine which has uses in biological assays, nuclear medicine imaging and in radiation therapy as brachytherapy to treat a number of conditions, including prostate cancer, uveal melanomas, and brain tumors. It is the second longest-lived radioisotope of iodine, after iodine-129.

Rubidium-82 (82Rb) is a radioactive isotope of rubidium. 82Rb is widely used in myocardial perfusion imaging. This isotope undergoes rapid uptake by myocardiocytes, which makes it a valuable tool for identifying myocardial ischemia in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging. 82Rb is used in the pharmaceutical industry and is marketed as rubidium-82 chloride under the trade names RUBY-FILL and CardioGen-82.

Gold-198 (198Au) is a radioactive isotope of gold, normally made by neutron capture on natural gold (entirely gold-197). It undergoes exclusively beta decay to stable 198Hg with a half-life of 2.6946 days.

REDIRECT Isotopes of gallium#Gallium-68

REDIRECT Isotopes of xenon#Xenon-133

REDIRECT Isotopes of gallium#Gallium-67

Indium-111 (111In) is a radioactive isotope of indium (In). It decays by electron capture to stable cadmium-111 with a half-life of 2.8048 days. The isotope is produced by proton irradiation of a cadmium target (112Cd(p,2n) or 111Cd(p,n)) in a cyclotron, as recommended by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The former method is more commonly used as it results in a higher level of radionuclide purity.

REDIRECT Isotopes of oxygen#Oxygen-15

Actinium-225 (225Ac, Ac-225) is an isotope of actinium. It undergoes alpha decay to francium-221 with a half-life near 10 days, and is an intermediate decay product in the neptunium series (the decay chain starting at 237Np). Except for minuscule quantities arising from this decay chain in nature, 225Ac is entirely synthetic.

REDIRECT Isotopes of chromium#Chromium-51