presentation on Cobalt 60. by: M.Ovais.Ur.Rehman

2. Dedicated to:
From:

3. INTRODUCTION:
It is a therapeutic device.
Cobalt-60, is a synthetic radioactive isotope.
It has a half-life of 5.2714 years.
It is produced by neutron irradiation in a nuclear reactor.
60Co decays by beta decay to the stable isotope nickel-
60. The activated nickel nucleus emits two gamma
rays with energies of 1.17 and 1.33 MeV,

4. Cobalt 60:

5. External Beam Radiation Therapy
External beam radiation therapy comes from a machine that aims
radiation at your cancer. The machine is large and may be noisy. It
does not touch you, but rotates around you, sending radiation to your
body from many directions.
External beam radiation therapy is a local treatment, meaning that the
radiation is aimed only at a specific part of your body. For example, if
you have lung cancer, you will get radiation to your chest only and not
the rest of your body.

6. Working principle
An external sealed source of cobalt 60is used in
teletherapy unit as a source of intense gamma
radiation for the treatment of a variety of cancers.
Cobalt 60 is used as tracer that is injected into the
body, then cobalt 60 source emits gamma rays, that’s
scanned by machine

8. Parts of cobalt T60 machine
1. Head
2. Collimator
3. Gantry
4. Patient support assembly
5. Main frame
6. Control console

10. Uses?
 Cobalt-60 therapy can be used anywhere
on the body. It is particularly useful in brain
tumor patients because it is so precise.
Because of its effectiveness and simple
design, doctors have used cobalt-60
therapy to treat cancer for almost 60 years.

11. Thank you