Scientists aim to solve medical isotope shortage.
Process could help solve world’s shortage of medical isotopes
Canadian scientists have shown they can make radioactive medicine without the headache of using aged nuclear reactors.
The new process, which could go a long way toward solving the world’s shortage of medical isotopes, uses hospital cyclotrons to make the compounds, bypassing the need for reactors.
“It’s essentially a win- win scenario for health care,” Dr. Francois Benard of the BC Cancer Agency told a news conference Monday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“We have found a practical, simple solution that can use existing infrastructure.”
The team, led by the TRIUMF nuclear lab based at the University of B. C., has produced technetium- 99m in cyclotrons in Ontario and B. C. The scientists describe it as a “major milestone” in the international race to come up with new ways to make the critically important isotope.
Technetium- 99m is used to help detect cancers, blocked arteries and heart disease in millions of people around the world each year. The supply is, however, often disrupted because 75 per cent of the technetium99m is now made at the trouble- prone Chalk River reactors near Ottawa and another aging reactor in the Netherlands.
Canada, which pioneered nuclear medicine, is seen as largely responsible for the precarious state of the global supply. New MAPLE reactors built at Chalk River were to supply the world with medical isotopes, but were mothballed, at a cost of over $ 500 million to Canadian taxpayers, because of technical flaws.
Several countries are now looking for new ways to make the isotope, and the Harper government last year handed the country’s nuclear medicine whizzes $ 35 million. It challenged them to produce the isotope without using a reactor or weapons- grade uranium, which is now imported from the U. S. to make isotopes in the Chalk River reactor.
“It’s a friendly competition,” Benard said of the Canadian teams.
One of the big advantages of his team’s approach is that they can use existing cyclotrons — there are 12 across Canada — regardless of brand or type of machine.
“The goal was to develop a technical solution that would work for many people, not just one machine or one brand of machine,” said Benard.