Nuclear reactor woes delay medical tests

Associated Press ^ | 12-7-2007 | AP

[Westlander]

Thousands of patients are facing delays in crucial medical tests because of a shortage of a radioactive substance used in those examinations — all because of the shutdown of one nuclear reactor in Canada.

McEwan said the nuclear medicine society has long pushed for the United States to build its own reactor to produce medical materials. That hasn’t happened for a variety of reasons, including cost, he said. He called that “shortsighted.”

[Westlander]

This is a potential disaster.

[HangnJudge]

May have to wake up Oak Ridge’s radionuclide production capabilities.

http://ornl.gov/

[edcoil]

“all because of the shutdown of one nuclear reactor in Canada.”

BS

Its all because we don’t have any (enough).

[Snoopers-868th]

BS

Its all because we don’t have any (enough).

Nah, just another way to significantly increase the price for those medical treatments. BOHIC

I predict, in the future, Technology will kill people by denying procedures for fashionable cause of the moment.

[HangnJudge]

In the envisioned Oak Ridge approach, an enriched molybdenum-98 product would be produced in ORNL’s calutrons at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant, which separate stable isotopes electromagnetically. The molybdenum-98 would be placed in ORNL’s High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), where it would capture a neutron, forming molybdenum-99. This product would then be introduced into large-scale radionuclide generators from which dilute technetium-99m solutions would be extracted and concentrated. The generators and concentrators would be built by DeRoyal Industries near the HFIR.

ORNL’s radionuclide generator technology offers several advantages over the conventional technology planned for producing technetium-99m. It is simpler and faster. Highly enriched uranium is not required as the starting material. Perhaps most important, it produces no highly radioactive waste that requires special storage and disposal.

The new technology will require approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prior to clinical use. It could make use of the HFIR and several other reactors in the United States, enabling the nation to avoid reliance on imports of molybdenum-99 from foreign sources.

http://ornl.org/info/ornlreview/rev29_3/text/techtran.htm

[timer]

Do you have a complete list of all the radio isotopes used in medicine and which ones are in critically short supply?

[HangnJudge]

Hmmm...

Good question

Tc-99m : Common tracer for a wide array of studies
I-131 : Used in Thyroid studies and for treating Cancer
Co-60 : Used as radiation source in Therapy machines
Cs-137 : Used as radiation source in Therapy machines
Radium implants used in radiation therapy
Yttrium-90 : Liver cancer treatment
Cobalt-57 diagnostic studies
Copper-64 diagnostic studies
F-18 : Pet scanning
Gallium-67 : Oncology
Indium-111 : Oncology
Lutetium-177 : Oncology
Palladium-103 : Oncology
Phosphorus-32 : Oncology
Rhenium-186 : Oncology
Au-198 : Gold seed or colloid therapies
Strontium-82 : Cardiology studies
Thallium-201 : Cardiology studies
Xenon-133 : Lung scans
Bismuth-213 : Oncology
Californium-252 : Ovarian cancer

There are others but I’d have to think about it more

The availability of radionuclides have been generally stretched, but in greatest need and has most tenuous supply chain is Tc-99m

[Westlander]

Co-60 and Cs-137 are extinct for radiation therapy. Linear accelerators have replaced their use.

[timer]

Isn’t CU64 used in the treatment of non-hodgekins lymphoma? It is produced in great abundance in the CF cell developed by Stan Gleason from the transmutation of thorium into CU and TI daughter isotopes. You don’t need nuclear reactors to do this, the cell is about the size of your fist.

You list some 21 radio isotopes(I thought it was more like 6 or 7). I can tell you the people to contact familiar w/CF transmutations. No, CF isn’t nutty stuff, it actually works; all the bad press it’s gotten for the last 18 years comes from the DOE/CTNF people who exist on federal funds and see it as a threat to their socialist white elephant.

There are lots of people out there suffering/dying for lack of the right radio isotopes in medical treatments, for at least SOME of these 21 isotopes we know how to do it, quickly and cheaply.

[HangnJudge]

Linear accelerators have replaced their use.

Yup - LINACS are definitely the way to go
Cs-137 and Co-60 are old technology

[HangnJudge]

Isn’t CU64 used in the treatment of non-hodgekins lymphoma?

This isotope is produced from a nuclear reactor with 64Zn(n,p) reaction. Production by this method is only available weekly at Missouri University.

64Cu is co-produced during the production of 67Ga from 68Zn.
it has a half-life. of 12.8. hours and is a positron emitter.

There has been developed a method for the efficient production of high specific activity Cu-64 using a small biomedical cyclotron. Cu-64 can be produced on a small biomedical cyclotron utilizing the [64]Ni(p,n)[64]Cu nuclear reaction.

Cu-64 labeled monoclonal antibodies have been studied in radioimmunotherapy as a positron emitter. Also used as a PET scan tracer source.