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Cobalt therapy is the medical use of gamma rays from the radioisotope cobalt-60 to treat conditions such as cancer.Beginning in the 1950s, cobalt-60 was widely used in external beam radiotherapy (teletherapy) machines, which produced a beam of gamma rays which was directed into the patient's body to kill tumor tissue.
Cobalt-60 (60 Co) is a synthetic ... Cobalt therapy, using beams of gamma rays from 60 Co teletherapy machines to treat cancer.
Cobalt-60 beam machine from 1951. Cobalt units use radiation from cobalt-60, which emits two gamma rays at energies of 1.17 and 1.33 MeV, a dichromatic beam with an average energy of 1.25 MeV. The role of the cobalt unit has largely been replaced by the linear accelerator, which can generate higher energy radiation.
a cylinder of radioactive source material (caesium-137 in the Goiânia incident, but usually cobalt-60) The Goiânia accident [ɡojˈjɐniɐ] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia , Goiás , Brazil, after an unsecured radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city.
In the Ciudad Juárez cobalt-60 contamination incident, a local resident salvaged materials from a discarded radiation therapy machine containing 6,010 pellets of 60 Co. The transport of the material led to severe contamination of his truck.
Cobalt-60 (60 Co) is a synthetic radioactive isotope of cobalt, with a half-life of 5.27 years, and emits highly penetrating gamma rays. It is commonly used as a radiation source for radiotherapy and equipment sterilization in hospital settings, and also has industrial uses.
Cobalt therapy, teletherapy machines using megavolt gamma rays emitted by cobalt-60, a radioisotope produced by irradiating ordinary cobalt metal in a reactor, revolutionized the field between the 1950s and the early 1980s.
According to the 1985 CNSNS report, about four thousand people were exposed to cobalt-60 radiation as a result of the incident. [3] It is estimated that almost 80 percent of people received a dose less than 500 mrem (equivalent to 5 m Sv ); 18 percent, between 0.5 and 25 rems (5–25 mSv); and only two percent (about 80 people) received doses ...