Question: how can radioactive atoms help to treat cancer

Sophia Pells answered on 6 Mar 2019:

When radiation interacts with material, it releases a lot of energy. When radiation hits a cancer cell it releases so much energy that it breaks apart the bonds in the cell’s DNA and causes the cells to die. The problem is, radiation can also kill healthy cells in your body, so we need to be really careful that the radiation is only attacking the cancer cells and not healthy cells.

There are two ways to get the radiation to the cancer:
Sometimes a beam of X-rays is used to shoot radiation into someones body. This is good for big tumours that aren’t spread around the body. The other way is to inject someone with radioactive atoms that are attached to a chemical that is specially designed to stick to tumours. The chemical takes the radioactive atoms to the tumours and they release their radiation energy to kill the tumour cells. This method is good for if someone has cancer that has spread around their body. For the second method, we need to use gamma cameras to see where the radiation has gone and make sure it’s going to the right place.