Professor Robert Howman-Giles welcomed an announcement by the Commonwealth Government that will see the construction of an export scale nuclear medicine plant at ANSTO.
The head of the nuclear medicine department at the Children's Hospital at Westmead said the $168 million plan, which includes a brand new investment in nuclear medicine, will secure Australia’s ability to produce Molybdenum-99 and increase capacity to meet a significant proportion of the world’s needs.
"The announcement is very important for the Australian [nuclear medicine] industry and also worldwide.
"One of the issues for us here at the Children's Hospital, which is one of the biggest paediatric nuclear medicine service in the Southern Hemisphere, is that we do 15 patients a day.
“It's a very busy department so we have to have a very reliable supply that we know will be here and giving us all the different types of radioisotopes that we need for the patients we have," he said.
Professor Howman-Giles said nuclear medicine played an important role in the diagnosis of serious illnesses such as cancer so it was critical there is an efficient supply of Molybdenum-99.
"From the patient’s perspective, it's as vital as anything because they need to have their tests done.
"The patients, when they come, are booked in for specific types of tests and we use the technetium that comes off the Molybdenum generators to produce the different types of radioisotopes for different areas that we're looking at in the patient.
"We do bone scans, thyroid scans, brain scans - all sorts of scans using technetium, which is basically the workhorse of nuclear medicine throughout Australia," he said.
About the plan
The $168 million plan will position the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) at the centre of the global fight against cancer and heart disease.
It includes a brand new investment in nuclear medicine and treatment that will create around 250 jobs. The main elements of the plan are:
- An export scale nuclear medicine manufacturing plant, which will secure Australia’s ability to produce Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) and increase capacity to meet a significant proportion of the world’s needs. Mo-99 is primarily used for diagnosis of heart disease and cancers. Applications include bone oncology, neurology, the kidney and gastrointestinal tract disorders. In Australia each year 550,000 people receive a diagnosis using Mo-99. Current world demand is for 45 million doses a year. Australian nuclear medicine is produced using low enriched uranium which is part of the push toward nuclear non-proliferation.
- A collocated Synroc waste treatment plant, which will deliver a permanent, safe and economical way of treating waste from past, current and future manufacture of nuclear medicines. Synroc is an Australian innovation that can also significantly reduce the volume of nuclear by-products (compared to other methods such as cementation). The synroc-treated waste will be sent to the national radioactive waste management facility once it has been sited, constructed and licensed.