How radiopharmaceuticals are used in medicine The BTEC students need to know about how radiopharmaceuticals are used in diagnostic imaging but this article also looks at how they can be used in the treatment of disease. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_medicine Nuclear medicine is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances (radioactive isotopes or radioisotopes) in the […]

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PET in Medical Physics http://www.iop.org/education/teacher/resources/teaching-medical-physics/positron/page_56317.html http://www.ipem.ac.uk/Portals/0/Images/02%20Spotlight%20on%20Positron%20Electron%20Tomography%20Computerised%20Tomography%20Imaging.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission_tomography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oD05S-s7UE Positron emission tomography (PET) is a nuclear medicine, functional imaging technique that produces a three-dimensional image of functional processes in the body using beta+ emitting isotopes. The isotope decays emitting a positron (which is a positive electron, also called a beta+ particle, and is a particle of […]

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The BTEC students at Rooks Heath also need to know about the uses of X-rays and gamma rays in the treatment of cancer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosurgery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_beam_radiotherapy http://www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk/cancer-information/treatment/pages/radiotherapy.aspx http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/radiotherapy http://www.ipem.ac.uk/CareersTraining/Whatdoourmembersdo/Radiotherapy.aspx Radiation is not just used for diagnosis, but for treating cancer as well. This is called radiotherapy. High energy radiation (x and gamma rays) are used. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0Dj4Sf8pzQ#t=299 […]

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CT Scanners The above CT scanner is used in Northwick Park Hospital http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=pet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_imaging#Tomography Tomography is the method of imaging a single plane, or slice, of an object resulting in a tomogram. There are two principal methods of obtaining such images, conventional and computer assisted tomography. Conventional tomography uses mechanical means to record an image […]

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X Rays BTEC students also need to know about the production and control of X-rays. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiography X-ray radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation (photons). Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 0.01 to 10 nanometres, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz (3 × E16 Hz to 3 × […]

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What is radioactivity? The BTEC students need to understand the basics of radioactivity before they investigate how it can be used in medicine. In order to understand what radioactivity is we need to know what an atom looks like. The simplest model is a nucleus consisting of positive protons and negative neutrons with negative electrons […]

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Ultrasound scanning The BTEC students need to know about the production of ultrasound and the basic principles of pulse echo technique, reflection and refraction, interaction with tissue, scattering and absorption; intensity measurement in decibels; specific acoustic impedance; sonar principle and ultrasonic scanning e.g. A-scan, B-scan and M-scan; Doppler effect; measurement of blood flow using Doppler […]

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Year 13 BTEC Applied Science students went to Northwick Park hospital to see the equipment used for all the different types of scans. This was really interesting and helpful for our assignment because we got an insight into how the equipment works and a real life point of view of how well they work and […]

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Rosetta is a robotic space probe built and launched by the European Space Agency whose mission is to investigate comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It was launched on the 2nd March 2004 and on the 12th of November 2014 the Philae lander was detached from Rosetta and successfully landed on the comet. Unfortunately the initial impact was softer […]

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For the second year Mrs Hare (who took the pictures which explains why she isn’t in any of them) hosted a lunch for year 11 girls to give them information about A level physics and how physics could be useful to their future careers. We would like to thank Ms Manchi Chung at the Institute […]

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