Isotope Shortage: And the Menace Continues
It has been about one month since Canada has seen the shut down of its major nuclear
reactor situated near the Chalk River. This has played a huge in taking the current isotope
shortage to the worst stage imaginable. Thanks to this shortage the use of nuclear
medicines have also stopped thus making the diagnosis and treatment of some of the
diseases completely impossible.
This is not surprising considering the fact that the plant has been the major supplier of
about 40 percent of molybdenum-99 worldwide. This is the kind of isotope that made
nuclear medicine possible. This has forced doctors either to seek other alternatives for
this isotope or resort to surgery in order to detect the disease.
Lack of these isotopes will mean that physicians would not be able to conduct various
important examinations that include, checking the condition of blood flow in the heart,
bone scan, and lung scan. Patients who are allergic to CT scan solely depend on these
isotopes.
Doctors also fear the worst-case scenario where the patient may also die due to wrong
diagnosis. This may happen, as the absence of nuclear medicine will definitely lessen the
accuracy of some of the detection. Right now the medical world is looking towards a
severe crisis.
Situations have currently come into such a pass that doctors are resorting to some old
versions of isotopes. Some doctors are using thallium-99 to conduct heart scan. This is
definitely the most desperate thing that any physician can do in order to save lives.
In various hospitals in Canada even cardiac patients are having real problem. This is
because they generally need a different kind of isotope known as thallium. But the
shortage of isotopes has virtually prevented the Canadian hospitals from stocking various
kinds of these. In one hospital at least 75 patients are waiting for the next shipment of
isotopes as that will ensure when the next tests are going to happen.
Considering the present situation we can only pray and hope that the production of these
isotopes starts again.