Ionizing radiation

Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy One of the greatest difficulties within the field of oncology is achieving the highest probability of cure with the lowest morbidity as possible. Treatment planning and delivery technology have changed significantly since the introduction of 3D treatment planning in the 1980s (Meyer, 2011). The latest and greatest method of radiation therapy is known as intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). Intensity-modulated radiation therapy is a newer, modern…

I chose the topic of the safety concerns in Radiology because it is a profession that I hope to be into soon. Infants, adults, and other ages in between need to be safe during any form of radiation treatment or procedure. So why are there careless mistakes of people being over exposed to radiation, when it can be so easily prevented? Unborn children are having full “babygram”, which is an x-ray of an infant’s entire body, and leaving sensitive organs exposed with no shielding (Bogdanich & Rebelo…

Furthermore, radiation during childhood gives patients a greater chance of developing cancer. “Medical Imaging Exposes People to Too Much Radiation”, states that kids are exposed to radiation, and the radiation has time to settle and develop into cancer which makes children more susceptible to cancer (Brownlee, Wainwright❡17). In a few years, the number of cancers of these children will start to appear, and the number will be excessive unless doctors lower the exposure of radiation to prevent…

Humans may experience daily exposure to genotoxic chemicals. Exposure to these genotoxic chemicals is often inevitable because they can be found in any environment, from an individual’s home to his or her workplace. The exposure to genotoxic chemicals can eventually lead to high levels of DNA damage, which has been suspected of causing cancer. The DNA damage caused by these chemicals can be measured by sister chromatid exchange. Sister chromatid exchange is a sensitive biomarker that is used to…

their antennas to cell phone towers. The phone calling and the phone receiving bear different frequencies but a cellular phone tower accommodates them with a specific frequency pair and thus the call is connected. RF waves are a form of non-ionizing radiation, meaning that…

heart, and reduces the radiation dose to the patient (Campeau and Fleitz, 2010). A focused grid is inserted into the moving grid mechanism of the wall stand and the automatic exposure chambers (AEC). The moving secondary grid absorbs maximum scattered radiation which negatively affects the radiograph quality but transmit the primary radiation to maximise the image quality (Willis-Owen et al., 2010). The left and right AEC are selected automatically to monitor the level of radiation transmitted…

The Brachytherapy procedure consists of radiation occurring inside the body. The materials that are injected into the area around the cancer in the prostate gland are known as “seeds”. The seeds are what cause the radiation to occur in the general area. The seeds are placed within a sterilized needle which then the needle is pushed through the skin between the scrotum and the rectum and ends within the prostate gland to begin radioactivity. There are two different types of doses for the therapy.…

Anticancer chemotherapy: The aim of drug treatment in patients with cancer is to reduce the presence of malignant cells. This may be achieved by causing a lethal cytotoxic event in the cancer cell that will arrest tumour progression. Targets for cytotoxic attack include inhibition of purine and pyrimidine synthesis, inhibition of DNA and RNA synthesis and chemical attack on the integrity of the structure of cellular DNA. Since these treatments reduce the mechanisms of cell proliferation in…

(photon radiotherapy). One primary difference between the two therapies revolves around the way in which radiation passes through the patient’s body, which has made serious improvements that some people may not be aware of. Photon radiotherapy actually uses radiation with the X-ray beam which passes through the patient’s whole body, while the newer, more beneficial process utilizes radiation to…

specialized in manufacturing machines which provided radiation therapy to cancer patients. This machine accomplished this by emitting a beam of electrons or x-rays to the cancerous area. This amount of radiation interferes with the cancerous tissue’s ability to grow by disabling the genetic material in the cell. However, since cancerous cells are not the only cells in the body that grow very quickly, skin and hair cells may also become affected by this radiation by causing the hair to fall out…