ALBUQUERQUE — The shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Canada has caused a shortage of an isotope used to detect cancers and heart disease, forcing doctors into costlier procedures that can be less effective and expose patients to more radioactivity.
About 16 million people in the United States — 40,000 patients each day — undergo medical imaging procedures using the isotope, technetium-99. Eighty percent of nuclear medicine scans use it.
Ninety-one percent of hospitals, pharmacies and commercial imaging groups that answered a June survey by the Society of Nuclear Medicine said the shortage affected them.
“You already have a vulnerable population with cancer, so it’s not trivial,” said Dr. Jeffrey Norenberg, who heads the National Association of Nuclear Pharmacies and directs radio pharmaceutical sciences at the University of New Mexico.
Technetium-99 is processed from molybdenum-99 and used in body scans for cancer, heart disease or kidney illness.
The shortage began with the shutdown of a Canadian reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, that produces half the U.S. supply of molybdenum-99. Technetium-99 must be made daily because it lasts just six to 12 hours.
