Dental and Medical Applications of Thermal Neutron Radiography.

Abstract

Neutron radiography will have similar unique applications in medicine as it has been shown to have in industrial radiography. Recent advances in industrial neutron radiography have shown that neutron radiography can in specific cases easily supply information which is not available with standard x-ray techniques. Unlike in X-radiography where beam attenuation increases regularly with the atomic weight of the material being radiographed, attenuation in thermal neutron radiography is a fairly random function of atomic number. This particularly strong attenuation of thermal neutrons by hydrogeneous materials should make neutron radiography of biological specimens complementary to X-radiography. The approach to the study of dental and medical applications of neutron radiography has concentrated on the following areas: Development of a neutron radiography facility at the Triga Mark I reactor at Reed College; Preliminary examination of photographic techniques for detecting neutrons; The study of anti scattering grids to filter scattered neutrons from the neutron beam transmitted by a specimen; The study of the use of contrast agents as a means of image enhancement; The study of radiation damage in rats subjected to low level neutron exposure.

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 1970
Accession Number
AD0729971

Entities

People

  • Bhim S. Savara
  • John A. Rau
  • William L. Parker

Organizations

  • Reed College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Attenuation
  • Biospecimens
  • Materials
  • Neutron Beams
  • Neutrons
  • Radiation
  • Radiography
  • Scattering
  • Thermal Neutrons
  • X Rays

Fields of Study

  • Medicine
  • Physics

Readers

  • Nuclear and Radiation Engineering.
  • Systems Analysis and Design