No abstract

Medicinal plants are very useful plants for humans with the various molecules and vitamins they contain. Most of the plants that grow spontaneously in nature were taken into agricultural production practices after their healing properties were discovered. The use of pure active ingredients obtained from plants is quite common. These effective compounds are also used by the pharmaceutical industry in the preparation of modern drug formulations. However, possible high levels of natural radionuclides in medicinal plants, particularly 226 Ra, 232 Th and 40 K, have upraised anxieties regarding radiological risks from plant consumption. In this study, the natural radionuclide activity concentrations of 8 commonly used medicinal plants in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey were determined by gamma spectrometric method using NaI(Tl) detector. The results of the analysis showed that the mean activity concentrations of 226 Ra, 232 Th and 40 K in medicinal plants were 21.05±2.80 Bq kg -1 , 55.99±4.32 Bq kg -1 and 908.29±11.86 Bq kg -1 , respectively. Mean transfer factor (TF) values from soil to plant were found to be 0.59, 0.88 and 1.52 for 226 Ra, 232 Th and 40 K, respectively. This present study shows that the use of these examined medicinal plants in the treatment of diseases will not pose any radiological health risks for humans.

In Natural radioactive materials may be existing in the environmental substances that have uses in pharmacy and medicine as health supplements. In this study, natural radionuclides such as 226 Ra, 232 Th, and 40 K were measured in seven medicinal or herbal plants collected from the local market in Kars, Turkey were analysed. All samples were analysed by means of gamma-ray spectrometer using NaI(Tl) detector. The radioactivity concentrations were found to vary in the range of 16.39±2.2 to 32.76 ±3.5 Bqkg-1 for 226 Ra, 19.74±3.7 to 85.01±5.6 Bqkg-1 for 232 Th, and from 795.82±9.8 to 1056.28±14.4 Bqkg-1 for 40 K. Rosehip showed the lowest activity concentrations of 226 Ra, 232 Th and 40 K, while rumex patientia showed the highest activity concentration of 40 K. In this research study, we aimed to determine the activity concentrations of radionuclides in medicinal plants and provide useful information to carry out a dose assessment to be exposed to people using medicinal plants for healing various diseases.

In this study, we studied the gamma radiation shielding properties of ternary germanate glass systems containing Bi2O3, PbF2, and B2O3. The glass samples were synthesized by using the traditional melt‐quenching method. X‐ray Diffraction (XRD) measurements were performed to confirm the glassy nature of the synthesized materials. A narrow‐beam transmission geometry equipped with a NaI(Tl) scintillation detector was used to measure experimentally measurable shielding parameters of the samples, like mass attenuation coefficient, linear attenuation coefficient, half‐value layer, and effective atomic number. Measurements were performed at gamma‐ray energies of 662, 1173, and 1332 keV emitted from 137Cs and 60Co radioactive sources. Additionally, all the above parameters were also calculated theoretically in the .015–15 MeV energy region by employing the WinXCOM software to verify the experimental findings. The experimental and theoretical results were found to be in good agreement. The results showed that the 70Ge20Bi10Pb glass system has competitive shielding properties among the studied glass systems and could be a good candidate for radiation shielding applications.

The present study was conducted to estimate the radiation attenuation parameters of six different antineoplastic drugs used in the cure of cancer diseases. The effective atomic number and electron density of anastrozole, epirubicin, gemcitabine, ifosfamide, methotrexate and paclitaxel were computed theoretically in the energy region of 1 keV to 100 GeV. The energy absorption buildup factors (EABF) and exposure buildup factors (EBF) for these chemotherapy drugs were also examined by applying Geometric Progression (GP) fitting method. The variation of EABF and EBF values with photon energy and penetration depth were presented graphically and discussed. The results obtained from this study pointed out that buildup factors rely on the chemical combination of the drugs, incident photon energy and penetration thickness. It was observed that ifosfamide had a significantly better radiation absorption effect compared to other drugs. The data obtained from this study are expected to be useful in the fields of radiation biology, radiation dosimetry and radiotherapy.