A Belgian reactor producing radionuclides used in cancer diagnosis has been temporarily shut down due to a mechanical failure of a non-return valve. The reactor, which has been offline since October 28th, is one of only six worldwide producing radionuclides. Since the other European reactors in the Czech Republic, Poland, and the Netherlands are currently undergoing scheduled maintenance, the entire burden of producing these radionuclides now lies with the remaining reactors in South Africa and Australia.
Detlef Moka, head of the Berufsverband Deutscher Nuklearmediziner (BDN), Germany’s professional association of nuclear medicine, pleads in a statement for new reactors to urgently be built to replace aging reactors in Belgium and the Netherlands.
According to Moka, the radionuclides produced by these reactors are a necessity for certain forms of cancer diagnosis, in which the radionuclides are injected to visualize metabolic processes. But even if the reactors in Australia and South Africa increase their output, Moka predicts prolonged shortages and even foresees being without the essential radionuclides for at least an entire week in November. This will in turn lead to inevitable delays of early cancer diagnoses.
Worldwide, more than 30 million examinations are being carried out using radionuclides every year. Germany alone accounts for 60,000 examinations per week. Usually, the reactors coordinate their downtimes to avoid bottlenecks in production, but the aging reactors in the Netherlands and Belgium have become increasingly unreliable.
It remains unclear, though, whether Moka’s call for a new reactor will be heeded any time soon. Already in 2009, the German Pharmacists Newspaper reported on shortages of radionuclides caused by unplanned downtimes of the aging reactors. Since then, however, two of the five largest reactors (one in Canada and one in France) have been shut down, while the others are another 13 years older.
