Isotope shortage means a healthcare crisis

[RamboLiberal]

Source: LA Times

The abrupt shutdown of two aging nuclear reactors that produce a radioisotope widely used in medical imaging has forced physicians in the U.S. and abroad into a crisis, requiring them to postpone or cancel necessary scans for heart disease and cancer, or turn to alternative tests that are not as accurate, take longer and expose patients to higher doses of radiation.

Because of limits on testing produced by the shortage, some patients will undergo heart or cancer surgeries that could have been prevented by imaging, while others will miss needed surgeries because of the lack of testing, said Dr. Michael Graham of the University of Iowa, president of SNM, formerly the Society of Nuclear Medicine. "It's possible that some deaths could occur," he said.

Private companies and government agencies in the U.S. and Canada are looking at new sources of the radioisotope,including the possibility of building new reactors and modifying existing research reactors, but any long-term solution is at least two to three years in the future, experts agree.

The situation is complicated by efforts by the U.S. government, the sole provider of the uranium used in the reactors, to shift to low-enriched uranium from the high-enriched fuel that is now used. Officials fear terrorists could theoretically divert the high-enriched form to the construction of bombs.

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The focus of this shortage is a short-lived radioisotope that most patients have probably never heard of -- technetium-99m, the "m" standing for metastable. With a half-life of only six hours, the isotope allows physicians to examine bones and blood flow, among other things, then quickly disappears from the body, minimizing the dose of radiation received by the patient. Because of its short half-life, the isotope cannot be stockpiled and must be used within a day or two after it is produced.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-isotope9-2009aug09,0,6453741.story

[kestrel91316]

1. Uh oh. My BIL is a nuclear pharmacist. He has had a fabulous career

for nearly 30 years. I hope his job didn't just disappear. Shit.

[Terre]

2. With all due respect

to you and your BIL, but I'm a little more concerned with the patients that this will affect.

[kestrel91316]

9. No need for snark. It hits me home personally, just in a different way than

most. It is unfortunate for patients AND people whose careers simply vanish (and their families).

[NashVegas]

6. Then I'm Sure He Has Fabulous Savings

And will be okay.

[kestrel91316]

10. Well, not anymore. My sister and BIL lost a huge chunk of their

retirement funds when Bush broke the economy. He needs to keep working to make up that loss.

[HughMoran]

3. I asked them if the stuff was radioactive, they said no.

This was a CT scan. You know the stuff you drink that makes you feel like your veins are on fire - is that stuff radioactive or not?

[Norrin Radd]

4. Barium-133. Most of the Barium isotopes are radioactive, but

Barium-133 is stable. Barium also doesn't accumulate in the body when ingested.

[newfie11]

5. No the barium you drank is not radioactive

The radiation from the CT will not pass through the barium so it enables the digestive tract to be seen. Barium is NEVER injected into veins.

[Posteritatis]

7. That stuff's about the most inert sort of thing ever placed in your body

That's why they use it for x-rays and the like - it's opaque to x-rays, non-toxic, and so phenomonenally useless to your body that it just goes "who put this here? Get rid of it!" and proceeds to do so easily without absorbing any of it. It's like non-stuff as far as your body's concerned.

If they injected something into you, that was most likely iodine-based and also safe as houses for anything near the time you'd have it in your system.

[kestrel91316]

12. Barium is harmless so long as the GI tract is intact. If that stuff ever

excapes, say through a perforation, and gets into the peritoneum - well, don't buy a big bag of people food.......

[melm00se]

8. the stuff that makes you

feel anywhere from warm all over to burning up is an iodine solution that acts a contrast material.

the speed at which the solution is injected dictates the heat that you feel. the faster it goes in the worse it is.

[kestrel91316]

11. I think that's an iodine compound that they give IV. IIRC.

[HughMoran]

13. Thanks everybody for straightening me out!

I have been educated.