Next Step FL#3 C/P #11

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PagingDr.F

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See images for question/explanation and associated figures.

The passage states that the half-life of Co60 is 5 years and the half-life of X is 1 year.

The explanation goes on to say that "Because X has a shorter half-life, it is logical that it would release more radiation in the same period of time because it undergoes decay more quickly"

"If GKS-Co involved radioactive material that decayed much more slowly than that in GKS-X, we would expect the GKS-Co tumor-reducing effects to catch up to or surpass GKS-X as time passed."

The above explanations seems contradictory. One says X undergoes decay more quickly, the other is implying Co does not "involve radioactive material that decays much more slowly".

Also, the trend shown in the table does imply X is releasing more radiation/time, but as you go from months 3 to 6, you see that the change in tumor volume is actually greater for Co than X (X:-0.98 vs Co:-0.21) making me think that if you continued to monitor tumor volume past 6 months, Co tumor-reducing effect would indeed catch up to X.

Why is C wrong? I can see A is true, but...the explanation implies C is wrong and that Co does NOT undergo decay much more slowly. Maybe if the Q-stem asked why X is more effective than Co but it's just asking about their capacities in general.
 

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I think C is clearly wrong but not for the reason they write. "GKS-Co anti-tumor emissions decompose much more slowly..." The anti-tumor emissions are obviously radiation particles. Radiation particles don't decay - rather, they themselves are result of decay. So by that alone, C doesn't make any sense.

If they had said "GKS-Co decomposes much more slowly than GKS-X," then I would agree with you - it's saying the same thing as A. If GKS-X is emitting more radiation, then that means it's decaying faster than GKS-Co. Which, of course, is the same thing as saying that GKS-Co is decaying slower than GKS-X.