Australia Issues Update On Nuclear Medicine Supply
Written by NucNet
Friday, 19 June 2009
Australia will consider how it could help to ease global shortages in nuclear medicine in the coming weeks, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) said on 17 June 2009.
ANSTO said it has successfully supplied nuclear medicines to Australian patients for the past two years through imports and is committed to maintaining the needs of patients as its top priority.
Although delays have periodically occurred during importation, often due to transport issues, ANSTO has worked closely with nuclear medicine physicians to minimise inconvenience to patients,the organisation said.
The countrys OPAL reactor is fully operational and is being used for radiopharmaceutical production, scientific research, silicon irradiation and specialised material analysis. In the last operating cycle, the reactor had 100 per cent availability.
In particular, OPAL has successfully irradiated the uranium plates required to make molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), which decays into the most widely used radiopharmaceutical, technetium.
A separate plant which uses complex chemistry to extract the Mo- from the irradiated uranium plates is operable and is now in the final stages of licensing, ANSTO said. The organisation said it is working with regulators, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), to complete this process in what is expected to be a matter of weeks.
Once routine operation of the Mo production facility is approved, commercial production can commence. ANSTO will then be able to start supplying the domestic market as well as consider helping with the global shortages due to the shutdown of the Canadian reactor (the National Research Universal reactor).
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited said late last month that its National Research Universal (NRU) reactor would remain out of service for more than one month after the discovery of a heavy water leak. The NRU reactor provides more than half of the worlds medical isotopes
