U of A team may hold cure to medical isotope need

Machine may match results without using radioactivity

University of Alberta researchers have made strides in creating mass quantities of medical isotopes without the use of radioactive materials, an advancement that could replace the isotopes produced at the aging Chalk River nuclear facility in Ontario.

Dr. Sandy McEwan, chair of the U of A oncology department, and his team have found a way to use a particle accelerator called a cyclotron to make technetium-99m, the isotope injected into patients to test for ailments such as cancers and heart disease. Technetium is used in about 250,000 nuclear medical imaging tests across Alberta each year.

Researchers weren’t sure if the cyclotron technetium would be as pure as the isotope that came from radioactive material, but McEwan and his team have honed the technique.

“When we inject cyclotron-produced technetium into a patient, it looks identical to the technetium that we introduce into a patient from a reactor,” Mcewan said. “So we’ve shown that it’s absolutely comparable.”

The researchers are about to increase production to prove it’s possible to produce enough of the isotope to meet Edmonton’s medical testing needs. To meet that goal, a powerful cyclotron will be installed in the old Balmoral Curling Club later this month.

Mcewan said he has “no doubt” that the new machine can meet production needs beyond the city.

“If we can produce enough for Edmonton, we can produce enough for Edmonton and Calgary,” he said.

The new cyclotron would eventually be part of a national network of machines that would work together to fulfil the country’s medical testing needs, Mcewan said. There are some isotopes that can’t be produced in a cyclotron, such as iodine-131, which is used to treat patients with rare cancers.

However, the world’s remaining reactors will have “no problem” fulfilling the need for iodine-131 if they no longer need to make technetium, Mcewan said.