Medical Isotope Production Without Highly Enriched Uranium (2009) / Chapter Skim
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4 Molybdenum-99/Technetium-99m Supply Reliability
4 Molybdenum-99/Technetium-99m Supply Reliability
Pages 55-65
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From page 55... ...
to low enriched uranium (LEU) production of medical isotopes" (see Sidebar 1.2)
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From page 56... ...
and South Africa (Safari-1) are coordinated so that there is available reactor capacity for medical isotope production. Also, the two European Mo-99 producers (Mallinckrodt and However, as discussed elsewhere in this chapter, unplanned shutdowns can result in insufficient reactor capacity.
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From page 57... ...
, the Canadian government announced that it was developing a new protocol for sharing information among reactor operators, isotope suppliers, and the medical establishment. Unplanned reactor shutdowns can severely disrupt Mo-99 supplies, and these disruptions can have serious impacts on the quality of patient care.
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From page 58... ...
Several unplanned shutdowns have occurred during the past 20 years (Sidebar 4.2 provides selected examples) ; two major reactor shutdowns occurred while this National Academies study was in progress: • A November 2007 shutdown of the National Research Universal (NRU)
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From page 59... ...
These outages are expected to disrupt Tc-99m supplies in Europe for at least 4–6 weeks and are also having an impact on North American markets. However, the supply disruptions have been somewhat less than expected because Mallinckrodt has been able to produce Mo-99 at its Petten facility from HEU targets irradiated in the Osiris reactor in France. Nevertheless, the European Association of Nuclear Medicine recently characterized the isotope supply situation as "turning from a short term shortage to a ‘chronic disease.'" The American Society of Nuclear Medicine has established a task force to examine alternative means for isotope production within the United States (SNM, 2008)
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From page 60... ...
There is enough surge capacity at existing reactors to temporarily cover Mo-99 shortages caused by short-duration shutdowns of single reactors, but such surges cannot be maintained indefinitely because reactors need to be shut down periodically for routine maintenance and refueling. In fact, recent experience suggests that unplanned shutdowns that extend beyond about a week have the potential to cause severe supply disruptions, as demonstrated by the November 2007 shutdown of NRU that was discussed earlier in this chapter (see also Sidebar 4.2)
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From page 61... ...
As noted in Chapter 3, for example, Mallinckrodt has 10 hot cells for Mo-99 production at its Petten, Netherlands, facility, even though other producers typically operate with fewer hot cells. MDS Nordion decided to build two Maple reactors at AECL to irradiate targets for Mo-99 production, even though one reactor had more than enough capacity to meet its current production needs.
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From page 62... ...
. Four organizations, including NRG and Mallinckrodt, are developing a business plan and conceptual design with research reactor builders for a new multipurpose reactor, named "Pallas," to replace HFR (van der Schaaf et al., 2008)
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From page 63... ...
If that were to happen, the Burr Amendment will have decreased the reliability of supply if it has slowed conversion efforts by HEU-based producers, which appears to be the case for at least one producer, MDS Nordion (Chapter 10)
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From page 64... ...
As demonstrated by the 2007 NRU reactor outage and 2008 HFR outage, the sustained shutdown of reactors used by either MDS Nordion or Mallinckrodt would result in the substantial disruption of supplies to the United States and worldwide, as would the simultaneous shutdown of reactors used by both companies even for short periods.
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From page 65... ...
MOLYBDENUM-99/TECHNETIUM-99m SUPPLY RELIABILITY 65 However, conversion would not address any of the other supply reliability concerns associated with current HEU-based production. Moreover, conversion itself could lead to reliability-of-supply problems if not carried out in a technically sound manner.
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