Characterization of titanium tube for manufacturing of iodine-125 seeds to be used in brachytherapy

Iodine-125 seeds have been widely applied as an alternative treatment for prostate cancer. Titanium is the material selected as the external part forming a tube which contains the iodine source. The titanium was chosen as the external container due to its physical and chemical properties such as corrosion resistant, lightness and mainly due to its bio-compatibility. The objective of the present paper is to characterize the titanium material to be used in the manufacture of iodine seeds, in special form of sealed source. Some assays to quantify the material impurities and dimensional analyses to control the tube wall thickness were performed. The ray-X fluorescence method was applied for impurities quantification while dimensional analyses were performed by microscopy. (author)