Question: Is it possible to use nuclear isotopes to cure diseases such as cancer cells?

Thomas Biggans answered on 16 Jun 2016:

Yes they can do exactly that!

In nuclear medicine we use radioactive iodine to treat thyroid cancer because iodine is naturally taken up in the thyroid and the radiation kills off the cancer cells however they also kill off the healthy cells too. We also use lower doses of this treatment for patients with overactive thyroids. We’re just about to start using radioactive radium which is naturally taken up in bones, again the radiation kills off the cancer cells but radium is an alpha emitter. Alpha radiation can’t travel very far through tissue so the radiation is contained to the cancer cells sparing the healthy ones.

In radiotherapy they use radioactive isotopes in a technique called Brachytherapy. In this case they insert the isotope into the body and put it right next to or inside the tumour. This delivers alot of radiation dose the tumour we want to kill and spares the healthy tissue around it.

There’s more research into whatever isotopes we can use to treat other types of cancer so we may see more of these kinds of treatments in the future.