All hospitals will receive technetium-99m generators for nuclear imaging requirements this week following a priority dispatch which took place early this morning.
ANSTO will supply technetium-99m nationally with deliveries to all centres occurring today and tomorrow (Friday 16 June 2006), although most will only receive approximately 55 per cent of their standard orders.
Following completion of molybdenum processing early yesterday afternoon, the yield on the production run was higher than anticipated. As a result, ANSTO allocated supplies to key hospitals in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. Usually, ANSTO sends out an average of 107 technetium-99m generators per week to customers and today 95 are being dispatched.
The next shipment of molybdenum is due on Saturday 24 June, with customers due to receiveproduct by Monday 26 June, which ANSTO anticipates should meet 100 per cent of the Australian community’s needs. ANSTO is arranging further shipments in an effort to assure Australia’s ongoing nuclear medicine requirements are met.
ANSTO’s production of another radiopharmaceutical, thallium, which can be used instead of technetium-99 in some heart scans, is being increased to help address the current supply shortage.
ANSTO is keeping all customers (including doctors, medical centres and hospitals) fully informed of the situation, so that clinic schedules can be adapted to meet priority community needs.
ANSTO will continue to provide updates about the situation to ensure the public and clients are kept informed.
Technetium-99m is produced when the radioactivity in molybdenum-99, which is produced in research reactors such as ANSTO’s HIFAR reactor, decays. ANSTO supplies molybdenum-99 to doctors via its Gentech Generators, which allows medicos to ‘milk’ the technetium when it’s needed. Most generators last about one week.
Published: 15/06/2006