Isotope Crisis Threatens Medical Care

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There are many reactors all over the world capable to produce the Mo-99, but they cannot help. The problem was foreseen about 20 years ago and many efforts have been given, but very expensive facilities for U irradiation in a reactor and for post processing, compared to the market size, have not allowed new facilities. It is said that the current shortage is 20 - 30%. It can be overcome by improving efficiency in the supply chain and use. For example, if the suppliers work during weekend, two-day decay of Mo-99 can be prevented. Nordion wrote in their homepage that the portion of Mo-99 (their current list price is several times of previous one before the shortage) is less than 1% of patients' payment for diagnostic imagings. The low price portion would not encourage companies and hospitals to give efforts to increase the efficiency. For rich hospitals, paying more money (still peanut for them) to the Mo-99 is better.

JUN, Byung Jin of KS 12:52AM December 25, 2009

Price of Tc-99m-generators will increase, I am sure. The consequence for the so-called developing countries: number of NM studies will go down even after the crisis.

Istvan Szilvasi MD 4:13AM August 24, 2009

It occurs to me that despite my distaste for the Bush administration (and my support of President Obama's efforts), the current crisis has been developing far longer than anyone will care to admit. Reliance on so few reactors, particularly when 2 of the 5 reactors supply 70% of the WORLD'S supplies of Moly-99,is ludicrous. These reactors are OLD; the Chalk River reactor is 50 years old! I think that the youngest reactor has been around approximatley 20 years.
On a more paranoid note, I wonder if other medical modalities have colluded to prevent nuclear medicine affiliates to address the isotope production issue or if we're just so complacent that we didn't see this senario developing for the last 10 years. (Now isn't that statement ridiculous!?)
Perhaps we should focus on the problem at hand instead of assigning blame. Write your senators and congressman to urge legislation and support for creating technitium sources that can keep our facilities open and our patients imaged.

Linda M. Clague of VA 4:47PM August 21, 2009

You are a fool.

cd of CA 1:32PM August 21, 2009

I spoke with several hospitals in the past 24 hours that are still reeling from the shortage of Tc-99m--and who don't expect to see things back to normal for the better part of a year. Indeed, many have been severely short of isotope on and off since May, long before the Petten shutdown. And the reactor responsible for jump-starting the latest crisis is now scheduled to go back into service no sooner than first quarter 2010. Some suspect if might be later than that. For some perspective on what hospitals and physicians are dealing with, see: "How medicine is ‘barely managing’ the isotope crisis" (http://tinyurl.com/n9n5of) and "Feds won't cover PET scans during isotope crisis" (http://tinyurl.com/pgq6bf).

Janet Raloff of DC 1:39PM August 20, 2009

I spoke with several hospitals in the past 24 hours that are still reeling from the shortage of Tc-99m--and who don't expect to see things back to normal for the better part of a year. Indeed, many have been severely short of isotope on and off since May, long before the Petten shutdown. And the reactor responsible for jump-starting the latest crisis is now scheduled to go back into service no sooner than first quarter 2010. Some suspect if might be later than that. For some perspective on what hospitals and physicians are dealing with, see: "How medicine is ‘barely managing’ the isotope crisis" (http://tinyurl.com/n9n5of) and "Feds won't cover PET scans during isotope crisis" (http://tinyurl.com/pgq6bf).

J. Raloff of DC 1:39PM August 20, 2009

I spoke with several hospitals in the past 24 hours that are still reeling from the shortage of Tc-99m--and who don't expect to see things back to normal for the better part of a year. Indeed, many have been severely short of isotope on and off since May, long before the Petten shutdown. And the reactor responsible for jump-starting the latest crisis is now scheduled to go back into service no sooner than first quarter 2010. Some suspect if might be later than that. For some perspective on what hospitals and physicians are dealing with, see: "How medicine is ‘barely managing’ the isotope crisis" (http://tinyurl.com/n9n5of) and "Feds won't cover PET scans during isotope crisis" (http://tinyurl.com/pgq6bf).

J. Raloff of DC 1:33PM August 20, 2009

They never have fixed an issue, but they sure can get in the way of a fix. We are not currently having issues eight years ago but today, and right now what happened eight years ago will not fix these issues. So lets take a Diazepam and not be offended that "our man" is in the heat since he did volunteer for the world's toughest job. I agree this article is a little outdated and the Dutch High Flux Reactor in Petten is back up and running and the Chalk River reactor SHOULD be up and running in January 2010, before the Petten reactor goes down, but we will see. There is maybe a hidden fact that due to shortages, all Tc-99m tracers are about to greatly increase in cost, and may never come down. Any thoughts on this angle?

DR of TN 11:31AM August 20, 2009