Canadian Company to Produce Cyclotrons for Medical Isotopes

David Rosenfeld | | Radiology Business | Business Intelligence
A Canadian company has announced it plans to address the shortage in nuclear isotopes for diagnostic imaging by manufacturing cyclotrons needed to create the medical isotopes. Best Theratronics plans to enter agreements with hospitals, clinics and medical research institutions. “A cyclotron uses a combination of magnets and radio frequency electric fields to accelerate ions to velocities high enough to create isotopes,” according to a press release. The announcement comes on the heels of research by scientists at Canada’s national laboratory showing that medical isotopes could be produced without a nuclear reactor. Previously, technetium-99 that’s required for most PET scans, was only obtained from aging nuclear reactors in Europe and Canada.

David Rosenfeld

Related Content

Mexico, not China, is biggest tariff concern among radiology vendors
DirectMed Imaging acquires Richardson Healthcare
Medical imaging trends to watch in 2025
Concerns about private equity's growing influence in radiology
Orano Med breaks ground on $265M thorium production site
Image-interpretation market scoreboard: Radiologists 72%, others 28%

Around the web

Health Imaging
American College of Radiology announces significant expansion of Lung Cancer Screening Registry

The ACR hopes these changes, including the addition of diagnostic performance feedback, will help reduce the number of patients with incidental nodules lost to follow-up each year.

Health Imaging
AI reduces CT lung cancer screening workload by nearly 80%

And it can do so with almost 100% accuracy as a first reader, according to a new large-scale analysis.

Health Imaging
Nearly $800,000 settlement offered to family of man who died during MRI exam

The patient, who was being cared for in the ICU, was not accompanied or monitored by nursing staff during his exam, despite being sedated.