Patients in line for medical tests to diagnose cancer and heart ailments may have a longer wait as hospitals try to conserve a scarce supply of isotopes, doctors say.
The latest shutdown of an Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ontario - which provides about half the global supply of isotopes used in medical imaging - is expected to last about a month as technicians repair a leak of heavy water.
Government-owned AECL said Tuesday it has enough medical isotopes for the coming week, but will unable to meet demand by Saturday.
The AECL said its NRU reactor was shut down last Thursday after a power outage. The leak was discovered shortly after that.
The 52-year-old reactor was ordered closed by Canada's nuclear regulator in 2007 until mandated safety upgrades had been completed. The nearly monthlong shutdown that resulted sparked a critical global shortage of medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and heart ailments, and only ended when Canada's Parliament voted to bypass the regulator's order.
Another lengthy shortage will force hospitals to delay non-urgent tests, said Dr. Karen Gulenchyn, a nuclear medicine expert who helped advise former Canadian health minister Tony Clement during the last isotope shortage in December 2007.
"It may mean that if you have an elective study booked ... that patient is going to be deferred and have to wait until the situation is resolved," she said.
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