Los Alamos National Laboratory
Gary Kliewer
505-665-2085
[email protected]
LOS ALAMOS-RUSSIAN TEAM SUPPLIES ONLY SOURCE OF ISOTOPES FOR HEART SCANS
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., April 6, 1998 - Thousands of heart disease patients nationwide would not be getting important diagnostic tests right now without the efforts of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory and a Russian nuclear research institute. Los Alamos is providing a precious supply of the medical radioisotope strontium-82 to Bracco Diagnostics through its contract manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb, in what has become a routine production schedule despite constant battles against import, export and shipping procedures. It is also a race around the world against the unrelenting decay-rate of the radioisotope itself: each passing day, another 3 percent of the valuable material is gone.
Strontium-82 decays to rubidium-82, used in positron emission tomography, or PET, a vital imaging technology for diagnosing heart conditions. Rubidium-82 emits radiation that can be "seen" by special cameras to produce three-dimensional internal images of the heart that show places where circulation is abnormal or blocked. The rubidium-82 decays quickly, so in about 10 minutes the radioactivity in the patient is essentially gone.
Currently, all three North American facilities capable of producing the irradiated metal sources, or "targets," for the isotope are shut down for system upgrades or repairs until June.
But the collaboration between Los Alamos and the Russian nuclear research institute helped ensure a reliable source of strontium-82 for all the cardiac care clinics doing PET imaging.
"We set out to expand the availability of this radioisotope," said Los Alamos project leader Dennis Phillips, "but we ended up keeping medical centers supplied the first half of this year."
Fortunately, Los Alamos spearheaded a collaboration beginning in 1995 with the Institute of Nuclear Research in Troitsk, Russia, where a particle accelerator the Russians designed for medium energy physics experiments can do the job. The partnership was supported by the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program with encouragement from DOE's Office of Isotope Production and Distribution.
Funded by DOE, the IPP program teams U.S. industry, universities and national laboratories with institutes in the former Soviet Union to develop potential commercial partnerships. The medical isotope program has now become a source of revenue for all the partners and a success story for the IPP. The Russian institute is incorporated into the global isotope market while its scientists are dissuaded from selling their nuclear expertise to rogue nations.
The targets - small, irradiated blocks of encapsulated rubidium metal - are shipped from Moscow in heavily shielded casks to Los Alamos. The elaborate chemical extraction process must be done in a radiation-proof chamber. All manipulations are performed with remote mechanical arms behind 18-inch-thick leaded-glass windows. After the chemical procedures, the Los Alamos scientists end up with a precious 13 millionths of a gram of strontium-82 from each source.
When the strontium-82 is received from Los Alamos, the isotope is mounted on another material to produce a "generator" that hospitals purchase and use for PET scans. Each generator supports imaging in about 90 patients. The generator system allows for very quick tests, including studies in succession of a patient's heart at rest and under stress.
Los Alamos and Brookhaven national laboratories produce strontium-82 part of the year, and Canada has one production source. But now, due to the FDA-approved Russian supply, hospitals can depend on having their demands for the isotope met throughout the year.
"We have now integrated the Russian supply into the regular production schedule," Phillips said.
Technology Commercialization International, an Albuquerque, N.M., company, is the member of IPP's business coalition that represents INR, the Russian institute, in the United States. TCI, which manages a number of joint ventures and partnerships with Russian institutes, helped get FDA approval and imports the rubidium targets. The company is pursuing diagnostic and therapeutic applications of other isotopes INR could produce.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
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Notes to reporters:
* Videotape and photographs of Los Alamos' isotope processing facility are available.
* For more information about the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) program, please see the Web site at: http://cisa.lanl.gov.
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