Tracer Shortage

[jedimaster91]

Bit of background for this one. I'm studying to be a Nuclear Medicine tech. One of our primary imaging agents is the element Technicium. The way we get technicium is through a generator that has Molybdenum in it, and the Moly decays to the Tech. Moly is a fission product, which means it can only be produced in a nuclear reactor.

There are very few nuclear reactors worldwide. I think the exact number is 8, but I don't remember exactly. One in Europe just went down recently, which doesn't impact the US supply too much as the reactor we get our generators from is in Canada.

Well, today the department supervisor frantically called everyone into a meeting after lunch today to tell us that Canada's reactor got struck by lightning. Yes, you read that right: the REACTOR WE DEPEND ON TO GET OUR IMAGING AGENTS HAS BEEN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!!1!! That means NO GENERATORS!

When I said Tech is our primary imaging agent, I meant literally EVERYTHING WE USE has Tech in it. So for at least the next week, we'll be doing what's called duel-isotope studies for cardiac stress tests. Resting pictures are done with Thallium, and the stress images use the Tech agent (in this case, Cardiolite). We HATE Thallium. It has a higher energy and a longer half-life than Tech, which means we can't use as much. Therefore, our images with Thallium--to put it nicely--look like crap. We also have 5 minutes to get the patients on the camera, or else the Thallium will redistribute and mask any problem areas. We also have to store waste until it's at background levels. Tech products take about 24 hours or so to get to background. Thallium takes about 30 days. No one has room for that kind of long-term storage.

Hopefully they get that reactor up again soon, or we're really in trouble. *sigh*

[smileyeagle1021]

ouch, that sounds painful... on the bright side though, with oil getting so expensive, and coal now the boogie man, it's likely that more nuclear power plants will be coming on line... hopefully some of those will be set up to provide Tech as well as power.

[Salted Grump]

Even worse is that the Chalk River Reactor (the Reactor that makes roughly 80% of the WORLD's Medical radioactives, IIRC), is slated for Total shutdown in the next 5 years, due to age-related problems.

So, either way, unless someone gets off their butt and makes a new medical reactor unit, Hospitals all over are gonna start screaming bloody murder, only Roughly a hundred times louder than the last Chalk River shutdown.

EDIT; my bad; Wikipedia (Which I decided to poke at in regards to Chalk River, just to make sure i got my facts right) says that the main medical reactor is currently down for maintenance so what Supplies of Technicium-99 exist are coming from other medical reactors and hospital stockpiles until the Maint. cycle is completed on that part of the Reactor.

[Hotfoot]

...is it bad that when I first looked at this thread, I thought, "Wait, tracers are illegal in most places anyway...and who needs them outside of the military?"



But yeah, this bodes not well. Without these isotopes in ready supply, medicine will be hampered in a few specific fields.

[Evil Queen]

I asked myself what a Tracer was (thinking it was a type of paper), started to read the thread and got hung up on "Nuclear Medicine tech".

I have no idea what that means, but does it mean you get to be Mr. Freezes' doctor?

[smileyeagle1021]

I asked myself what a Tracer was (thinking it was a type of paper), started to read the thread and got hung up on "Nuclear Medicine tech".

I have no idea what that means, but does it mean you get to be Mr. Freezes' doctor?

as it is that my mother sees these guys quite often now, I can somewhat answer that question in laymens terms... a Nuclear Medicine Tech is someone who uses various forms of low level radiation to see images inside the human body, the most common form being X-ray, but it would appear Jedi handles the more complicated stuff.

That's actually where a huge amount of the waste that the government wants to dump on Yucca Mountain will be coming from is the hospital stockpiles.

[Evil Queen]

Like that stuff they put in your blood to make your veins show up on X-Rays?

SO COOL!

[jedimaster91]

Updatyness:

September's shortage was only a baby shortage. A couple weeks ago, we had to cancel every stress test and bone scan because the pharmacy had NO GENERATORS. They had enough Tc99m to cover stuff like HIDAs (gallbladder function scan) and gastrics, but not enough for hearts and bones. The bulk Tc99m doses needed to be held in reserve for STAT lung scans and GI Bleeds. Several of the world's reactors were down for one reason or another. So, as you can imagine, the past few weeks since the pharmacy finally got generators in, have been absolutely crazy.

Also, my apologies for not checking this thread when I initially posted it and leaving everyone confuzzled as to what it is I do. Nuc Med is similar to X-ray, but our scans are function-based rather than anatomy-based. That's the reason our PET scans are so good for detecting most cancers because we will see a change in cells' glucose metabolism long before a CAT scan shows any abnormal growth. Our scans also take a lot longer because we have to wait for the body to metabolize the tracers and clear it out of surrounding areas before we ca image. Also, none of our tracers are dyes, so outside of some of the theraputic procedures, there are virtually no side effects. Feel free to PM me if you want any further explaination.

[Bosch]

Updatyness:

September's shortage was only a baby shortage. A couple weeks ago, we had to cancel every stress test and bone scan because the pharmacy had NO GENERATORS. They had enough Tc99m to cover stuff like HIDAs (gallbladder function scan) and gastrics, but not enough for hearts and bones. The bulk Tc99m doses needed to be held in reserve for STAT lung scans and GI Bleeds. Several of the world's reactors were down for one reason or another. So, as you can imagine, the past few weeks since the pharmacy finally got generators in, have been absolutely crazy.

Also, my apologies for not checking this thread when I initially posted it and leaving everyone confuzzled as to what it is I do. Nuc Med is similar to X-ray, but our scans are function-based rather than anatomy-based. That's the reason our PET scans are so good for detecting most cancers because we will see a change in cells' glucose metabolism long before a CAT scan shows any abnormal growth. Our scans also take a lot longer because we have to wait for the body to metabolize the tracers and clear it out of surrounding areas before we ca image. Also, none of our tracers are dyes, so outside of some of the theraputic procedures, there are virtually no side effects. Feel free to PM me if you want any further explaination.

Didn't leave me confused, I was a biller for ER phys, and a lab for almost 10 years, the BS in that field nearly killed me from the stress. Retail is a working vacation in comparison..

[jedimaster91]

Ugh. Don't get me started on the ER docs. None of those idiots seem to know how to order a V/Q lung scan properly. A V/Q is meant to find pulmonary embolisms in patients who are allergic to CT contrast (CT's PE Protocol is really the best at finding blood clots in the lungs). We of course get the 400 pound patients with asthma, COPD, emphysema, and all kinds of other lung issues. Images understandably look like crap. I expect there to be an influx of V/Q orders this weekend with the nice weather rolling in and people not being able to tell the difference between an allergy flare up and more serious conditions.

[Bandit]

I expect there to be an influx of V/Q orders this weekend with the nice weather rolling in and people not being able to tell the difference between an allergy flare up and more serious conditions.

As someone who works at a place that prepares the raw materials, I know what jedimaster is going through - we're ramping up the production to get ready for it.

Makes my life a bit of hell as my maintenance window drops to between "ohmygawditsearly!" and "holyfuckisitearly!"

B