Tungsten Collimator Used in Medical Devices

Tungsten collimators are preferred more than any other material made collimators because of their exceptional properties. One of the examples of its usage in the medical industry is in Cyber-knife system which is used to treat patients with radiation therapy in robotic style. Uses in Medical devices including CT machine: Tungsten rod is used as a main manufacturing component in CT machines. It is mainly used in making detector arrays of scanners whereas its collimators are used in making circular radiation components. However, some manufacturers also use lead in making these products. Tungsten alloy collimator is the device mainly used for making the beam of particles and waves narrow. Along with this property, it is also used as linear accelerator or cyclotron in various medical treatments. This collimator consists of simple structure with easy working phenomena e.g. Fibre radiate light is converted into parallel light (Gaussian beam). The summary of its all features is that it efficiently maximises the light which is coupling into the device. We all must be aware of radiotherapies which are used to destroy cancer cells or tumour by directly putting radiation beams on it. Surgeons must take a lot of care when treating patients with this radiotherapy because the surrounding tissues of the tumour must not face this radiation or those tissues will get badly damage. To keep the focus of beams on the right place, multi-leaf tungsten alloy collimator is used. This material consists of two very thin but heavy tungsten alloy plates which are configured in such a way that it works on exactly the tumour area by measuring the accurate shape and size. These heavy tungsten alloy collimators are made up of groundbreaking components of tungsten alloy X-ray targets. According to the recent medical research, tungsten alloy collimators, with high shielding capability and high density, are more successful in different radiation therapies as compared to X-rays and gamma rays.

Further Advantages of Using Tungsten collimators: • It is one of the safest devices to be used on a job site which definitely reduces extra radiations. • The extra or the scattered radiation around the film is automatically reduced which increases the quality of radiography shots. • Safer and more understandable operation for radiographers. • Tungsten alloy itself is more efficient shielding material than lead; it is easy to handle and can be used even without a license. • One of its properties which are also ideal for Industrial use is that it does not spark. Cyber-knife technology and Tungsten Collimator: It is the same technology, which I discussed at the beginning of this article. The cyber-knife technology was invented to treat all stages of cancer patients and this treatment has remained successful till now. Tungsten collimators are used as a main manufacturing component of this machine. One of the features of this cyber-knife is robotic mounting. In it, the tungsten collimators are fixed and used because they can produce circular radiation fields and collimate the radiations easily. For more information about tungsten and other advanced materials, please visit http://www.samaterials.com/

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