A new approach to study the mechanism of radiation-induced degradation of polymeric materials based on the combined analysis of radiolytic gases and pyrolytic products from preirradiated polymers is proposed. Bisphenol-A polycarbonate (PC) was gamma-irradiated under vacuum in the dose range from 0.125 to 1.0 MGy followed by its flash pyrolysis under an inert atmosphere coupled to GC-FTIR-MS. Pyrolyzed PC at 750degreesC released mainly carbon dioxide, methane, benzene, toluene, phenol and 4-methylphenol. The yields of some of these products linearly decrease or increase with absorbed dose. On the basis of this behavior and combining our previous data on gas evolution, we infer two main pathways of PC radiation-induced scission with equal probabilities: (a) carbonate bond and (b) aliphatic-aromatic bond ruptures.