Disintegration is a synonym for radioactive decay.

Activity is the rate of radioactive decay or the emission rate of a radiation from radioactive material. The cumulated activity is useful for nuclides that emit multiple radiations per disintegration.
The units for activity are the curie (Ci) and the becquerel (Bq).

(Bq) Becquerel is the system international (SI) since 1985 new unit of radioactivity. 1 becquerel is equal to 1 disintegration per second.
1 Bq = 0.027 x10^-9 Ci (Curie).
In medicine and radiation protection the SI measurement units of becquerel, gray and sievert (should) have replaced the conventional units of curie, rad and rem.

To convert:


See also Gray, Sievert, Roentgen Equivalent In Man, Radiation Absorbed Dose, Count and Becquerel Antoine Henri.

(C, c, Ci) Curie is an obsolete unit of radioactivity; superseded by the SI unit becquerel.
1 curie is 3.70 x10¹⁰ disintegrations per second or 37,000 MBq. Formerly it was defined as the radiation emitted by 1 g of radium.
The curie is originated on Marie (1867-1934) and Pierre (1859-1906) Curie, (French chemists and physicists and Nobel laureates).

See Becquerel.

Scintigraphic imaging of the lungs is a sensitive diagnostic imaging tool to detect certain kinds of pulmonary abnormalities in correlation with clinical data and chest radiographs. Pulmonary scintigraphy is particularly useful in diagnosing medical conditions such as pulmonary embolism, bronchial carcinoma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Lung scintigraphy can be performed with radioaerosols, gaseous radiopharmaceuticals and technetium-99m-labeled perfusion agents that are localized by temporary capillary blockade.

Different types of lung scintigraphy include:
The choice of the radioactive tracer varies and depends on the pulmonary function to be imaged. The radioactive tracer distribution within the lungs can be displayed on a computer screen via a gamma camera, a scanner or some other similarly suitable detector that records the radioactive disintegrations emitted by the patient. The images obtained present chromatic variations proportional to the regional radioactivity.