

An element that can make bones glow - schrofer
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32833599

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flarg
In another life I used to prepare Tc99m injections for various scans and we'd
call the ligands by their intended target (e.g. lung, heart etc). We'd measure
the dose according to the expected time of administration in order to account
for the expected decay. Our generators came from a place outside London and we
would 'elute' with saline to extract the Tc.

We didn't just deal with human patients and often tagged the white cells of
race horses in order that their veterinarian could detect points of infection
with a gamma camera because the white cells, once re injected into the animal
would quickly migrate to the nearest infection in order to join the fight.

Contamination was rare because Tc has such a short half life but the same was
not true for Fe 59 and the various Iodine isotopes. Hilariously two colleagues
were once tested by the monthly inspection team and were compelled to dispose
of their trousers because of contamination... The mind boggles.

