Medical physics

thumb|Natural color X-ray photogram of a wine scene. Note the edges of hollow cylinders as compared to the solid candle. thumb|William D. Coolidge|William Coolidge explains medical imaging and X-rays.

Radiology ( ) is the medical specialty that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide treatment within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiation), but today it includes all imaging modalities. This includes technologies that use no ionizing electromagnetic radiation, such as ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as others that do use radiation, such as computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy, and nuclear medicine including positron emission tomography (PET). Interventional radiology

therapy using ionizing radiation

medicine imaging technique

Radiobiology (also known as radiation biology, and uncommonly as actinobiology) is a field of clinical and basic medical sciences that involves the study of the effects of radiation on living tissue (including ionizing and non-ionizing radiation), in particular health effects of radiation.

technique and process of creating visual representations of the interior of a body

application of physics in medicine or healthcare

Brachytherapy is a form of radiation therapy where a sealed radiation source is placed inside or next to the area requiring treatment. The word "brachytherapy" comes from the Greek word , meaning "short-distance" or "short". Brachytherapy is commonly used as an effective treatment for cervical, prostate, breast, esophageal and skin cancer and can also be used to treat tumours in many other body sites. Treatment results have demonstrated that the cancer-cure rates of brachytherapy are either comparable to surgery and external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) or are improved when used in combination wit

medical procedure most often used in the treatment of cancer

nuclear medicine tomographic imaging technique

form of phototherapy

electromagnetic radiation that does not carry enough energy per quantum to ionize atoms or molecules

health Phenomenon

thumb|Joanna Izewska gives Ambassador Frank Recker and his delegation a tour of the IAEA Dosimetry Laboratory. Radiation dosimetry in the fields of health physics and radiation protection is the measurement, calculation and assessment of the ionizing radiation dose absorbed by an object, usually the human body. This applies both internally, due to ingested or inhaled radioactive substances, or externally due to irradiation by sources of radiation.

device used primarily in medical contexts to image gamma radiation emitted by a source

measure of the cancer risk to an organism due to ionizing radiation adjusted by tissue type factor

kinetic energy released per mass

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.

health effects of radiation on living organisms

non-invasive therapeutic technique

nonsurgical therapeutic modality for treating locally invasive malignant tumors

thumb|right|200px|The structure of the technetate(VII) ion The pertechnetate ion () is an oxyanion with the chemical formula . It is often used as a convenient water-soluble source of isotopes of the radioactive element technetium (Tc). In particular it is used to carry the 99mTc isotope (half-life 6 hours) which is commonly used in nuclear medicine in several nuclear scanning procedures.

fighting cancer with high-energy particles

application of laser in medical field

Tomotherapy is a type of radiation therapy treatment machine. In tomotherapy a thin radiation beam is modulated as it rotates around the patient, while they are moved through the bore of the machine. The name comes from the use of a strip-shaped beam, so that only one "slice" (Greek prefix "tomo-") of the target is exposed at any one time by the radiation. The external appearance of the system and movement of the radiation source and patient can be considered analogous to a CT scanner (computed tomography), which uses lower doses of radiation for imaging. Like a conventional machine used for X

Positron emission tomography–computed tomography (better known as PET–CT or PET/CT) is a nuclear medicine technique which combines, in a single gantry, a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner and an x-ray computed tomography (CT) scanner, to acquire sequential images from both devices in the same session, which are combined into a single superposed (co-registered) image. Thus, functional imaging obtained by PET, which depicts the spatial distribution of metabolic or biochemical activity in the body can be more precisely aligned or correlated with anatomic imaging obtained by CT scanning.

branch of physics around radiation protection

branch of pharmacy focused on radiopharmaceuticals

water with a lower concentration of deuterium than occurs naturally

soft tissue ablation technique

chemical compound

Colloquially a technetium cow, or moly cow, a device used to extract the short-lived Tc-99m

thumb|Obstetric ultrasonography of [[twins at a gestational age of almost 9 weeks. The mother’s and the twins’ bodies have a higher echogenicity than the amniotic fluid around them. The standard representation is brighter color for higher echogenicity, giving the almost anechoic fluid an almost black appearance.]] Echogenicity (sometimes as echogenecity) or echogeneity is the ability to bounce an echo, e.g. return the signal in medical ultrasound examinations. In other words, echogenicity is higher when the surface bouncing the sound echo reflects increased sound waves. Tissues that have highe

in cancer or tumor treatments

medical intervention

radiation therapy for cancer

type of scanning

Photomedicine is an interdisciplinary branch of medicine that involves the study and application of light with respect to health and disease. Photomedicine may be related to the practice of various fields of medicine including dermatology, surgery, interventional radiology, optical diagnostics, cardiology, circadian rhythm sleep disorders and oncology.