Isotope shortage is limiting nuclear medicine across Europe

sea-maid submitted, created time 4 months 2 hours (www.bmj.com)

A worldwide shortage of medical isotopes used as radiotracers in molecular imaging will persist at least until the end of September, limiting European hospitals to between 20% and 40% of their usual nuclear medicine activities, the European Association of Nuclear Medicine warned this week.

Wolfram Knapp, the association’s president elect, said that with three of the five global nuclear reactors supplying medical isotopes still shut down, it is too early to determine when supplies will return to normal. But he cautioned: "The end of September is a best case scenario

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Your history is printed in your hair

Nuclear-reactor closure hits cancer tests

jane2007 submitted, created time 1 year 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

Hospitals across North America have been forced to cancel tests for cancer and heart disease because the unexpected closure of a Canadian nuclear reactor has led to a sudden shortage of medical isotopes.
From the article we can know the "NRU reactor was to be decommissioned in 2005, but its operating licence was extended until problems with two replacement reactors",why it happened?

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Recruitment of Compensatory Pathways to Sustain Oxidative Flux With Reduced Carnitine Palmitoyltransferase I Activity Characterizes Inefficiency in Energy Metabolism in Hypertrophied Hearts

fiona submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (circ.ahajournals.org)

"Transport rates of long-chain free fatty acids into mitochondria via carnitine palmitoyltransferase I relative to overall oxidative rates in hypertrophied hearts remain poorly understood. Furthermore, the extent of glucose oxidation, despite increased glycolysis in hypertrophy, remains controversial. The present study explores potential compensatory mechanisms to sustain tricarboxylic acid cycle flux that resolve the apparent discrepancy of reduced fatty acid oxidation without increased glucose oxidation through pyruvate dehydrogenase complex in the energy-poor, hypertrophied heart."

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