In metabolism research, tritium and C-labeled glucose are commonly used in glucose clamps to measure rates of glucose uptake, fatty acid synthesis, and other metabolic processes.  While radioactive tracers are sometimes still used in human studies, stable isotope tracers such as C are more commonly used in current human clamp studies. Radioactive tracers are also used to study lipoprotein metabolism in humans and experimental animals.
In medicine, tracers are applied in a number of tests, such as Tc in autoradiography and nuclear medicine, including single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET) and scintigraphy. The urea breath test for helicobacter pylori commonly used a dose of C labeled urea to detect h. pylori infection. If the labeled urea was metabolized by h. pylori in the stomach, the patient's breath would contain labeled carbon dioxide. In recent years, the use of substances enriched in the non-radioactive isotope C has become the preferred method, avoiding patient exposure to radioactivity.
In hydraulic fracturing, radioactive tracer isotopes are injected with hydraulic fracturing fluid to determine the injection profile and location of created fractures.  Tracers with different half-lives are used for each stage of hydraulic fracturing. In the United States amounts per injection of radionuclide are listed in the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidelines.  According to the NRC, some of the most commonly used tracers include antimony-124, bromine-82, iodine-125, iodine-131, iridium-192, and scandium-46. A 2003 publication by the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms the frequent use of most of the tracers above, and says that manganese-56, sodium-24, technetium-99m, silver-110m, argon-41, and xenon-133 are also used extensively because they are easily identified and measured.