What is the biological half-life of iodine-131?

Half Lives

Why is it important that iodine-131 has an 8 day half-life?

use in medicine …in particular organs: for example, iodine-131 settles in the thyroid gland and can reveal a variety of defects in thyroid functioning. This gamma-ray emitter has a half-life of eight days and concentrates in the thyroid gland, and so provides a measure of thyroid function.

What is the product of iodine-131 decay?

Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8.06 days and decays by beta-particle emission to a stable 131Xe.

How is biological half-life determined?

Typically, the biological half-life refers to the body’s natural cleansing through the function of the liver and through the excretion of the measured substance through the kidneys and intestines. This concept is used when the rate of removal is roughly exponential.

What is the biological half-life of an isotope?

A biological half-life or elimination half-life is the time it takes for a substance (drug, radioactive nuclide, or other) to lose one-half of its pharmacologic, physiologic, or radiological activity.

What is the advantage of iodine-131?

The potential benefits of I-131 adjuvant treatment include decreasing recurrence and disease-specific mortality for unknown microscopic, locoregional, and/or distant metastatic disease.

Why is iodine-131 useful?

I-131 is used in medicine to diagnose and treat cancers of the thyroid gland. Where does it come from? I-131 is produced commercially for medical and industrial uses through nuclear fission. It also is a byproduct of nuclear fission processes in nuclear reactors and weapons testing.

What are the main uses of iodine-131?

Iodine-131 is used to treat some diseases of the thyroid gland. Iodine-131is widely used in imaging the thyroid and in treating thyroid cancer and other abnormal conditions such as hyperthyroidism. It also used to diagnose abnormal liver function, renal (kidney) blood flow and urinary tract obstruction.

What is biological half-life and its importance?

What is biological decay?

Biological degradation can be defined as the decay that results from organisms such as fungi and bacteria performing in the presence of excess moisture and air for an extended period of time [86].

What properties of iodine-131 make it effective at destroying pieces of the thyroid?

In all of these therapeutic uses, 131I destroys tissue by short-range beta radiation. About 90% of its radiation damage to tissue is via beta radiation, and the rest occurs via its gamma radiation (at a longer distance from the radioisotope).

What is iodine used for?

Iodine is a mineral found in some foods. The body needs iodine to make thyroid hormones. These hormones control the body’s metabolism and many other important functions. The body also needs thyroid hormones for proper bone and brain development during pregnancy and infancy.