National Seminar on Recent Advances and Applications of Radioisotopes in Healthcare

Abstract

Radiations are electromagnetic radiation having wide impact on the biological system.
Thorium 232, Neptunium-237, Uranium 238 and Uranium 235 are widely used naturally
available radioactive materials. All the living beings on the earth are continuously being
exposed to the natural external and internal sources of radiations which they must receive and
are very difficult to avoid. Persons who opt willingly for an occupation involving exposure to
radiations must know the radiation exposure risks and permissible doses of radiations. Proper
training to work in radiation areas can minimize the radiation exposure. In biological
organisms, radiation damage occurs due to the ionisation of atoms and molecules in cells.
The production of ions can result in chemical reactions which break molecular bonds in
proteins and other biological molecules. Biological damage can subsequently result either by
cells being killed or mutating (which can result in cancer). Genetic and teratogenic effect is
also often observed in certain cases. The optimized exposures from any radiation source
within a practice shall be done so that the magnitude of individual doses, the number of
people exposed and the likelihood of incurring exposures should be taken care as low as
reasonably achievable. For detecting and measuring ionizing radiation scintillation counter
are used in which the excitation effect of incident radiation on a scintillator material were
detected by the resultant light pulses