Editing Synthetic radioisotope (section)

====Diagnosis====
Radioactive tracer compounds, [[radiopharmaceutical]]s, are used to observe the function of various organs and body systems. These compounds use a chemical tracer which is attracted to or concentrated by the activity which is being studied. That chemical tracer incorporates a short lived radioactive isotope, usually one which emits a [[gamma ray]] which is energetic enough to travel through the body and be captured outside by a [[gamma camera]] to map the concentrations. [[Gamma camera]]s and other similar detectors are highly efficient, and the tracer compounds are generally very effective at concentrating at the areas of interest, so the total amounts of radioactive material needed are very small.

The metastable [[nuclear isomer]] [[technetium-99m]] is a [[gamma-ray]] emitter widely used for medical diagnostics because it has a short half-life of 6 hours, but can be easily made in the hospital using a [[technetium-99m generator]]. Weekly global demand for the parent isotope [[Isotopes of molybdenum|molybdenum-99]] was {{convert|12000|Ci|TBq|lk=out|order=flip|abbr=on}} in 2010, overwhelmingly provided by fission of [[uranium-235]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Production and Supply of Molybdenum-99|url=https://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC54/GC54InfDocuments/English/gc54inf-3-att7_en.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC54/GC54InfDocuments/English/gc54inf-3-att7_en.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|publisher=IAEA|access-date=4 March 2018|date=2010}}</ref>