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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2009;302(7):732.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

A worldwide "critical shortage" of medical isotopes is expected due to the shutdown until late 2009 of a nuclear reactor in Ontario, Canada, according to Canadian authorities. The reactor, which stopped operations because of a heavy water leak, produces as much as 40% of the global supply of molybdenum 99 (⁹⁹Mo), which decays to form technetium 99m (^99mTc). ^99mTc is currently used in approximately 80% of nuclear medicine scans.

According to Natural Resources Canada, the world's current supply of ⁹⁹Mo is produced by 5 aging reactors in Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and South Africa. The shortage was expected to be exacerbated by the temporary closing of the Netherlands reactor for a month-long maintenance inspection from July 18 to August 18. Because the isotopes have a relatively short half life, they cannot be stockpiled.

Canadian authorities said they were working with medical isotope distributors and . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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