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Lesson 3: Radiation and health

Ionizing radiation can damage living cells and can lead to illnesses, such as

cancer. But they can be also used to diagnose and treat some diseases.

Sometimes people are ill but no obvious external symptoms can be seen by a

doctor. Therefore the patient might be sent to the hospital to have a scan of the

inside of their body. In the past a doctor might have operated on a patient to

look at them, but a scan is far easier and better for the patient and can show

doctors images of a patients internal organs.

For the scan to work sometimes the patient needs to be injected with a

radioactive substance that emits Gamma radiation. The Gamma radiation

can easily escape the patient’s body and can be picked up by a detector,

building up an image of the patient’s body. If there is a problem inside the

patient, this will show up on the image and can be investigated further.

In your exam you may be asked how Gamma radiation can be used in hospitals

to help patients.

Injecting people with radioactive materials is of course not exactly a great idea,

but a balance needs to be made. If the small risk from injecting the person with

a source of Gamma radiation is outweighed by the benefit of identifying a

serious illness, then the risk is worth it.

In your exam you may be asked about balancing the risk of using radioactive

sources to identify illnesses.

Radiation can also be used to cure cancer. By targeting a beam of Beta radiation

onto the area that contains the cancer cells. The cancer cells can be killed just

like normal healthy cells, thus curing the patient. This type of treatment is called

radiotherapy.

In your exam you may be asked how Beta radiation can be used to cure cancer.

What you need to know:

1. How radioactive materials can be used to treat illnesses.

Recap:

1. Gamma radiation can be used to produce scans of people’s bodies.

2. Beta radiation can be used to cure cancer, by killing cancer cells.