Pre-feasibility Study for Establishing Radioisotope and Radiopharmaceutical Production Facilities in Developing Countries.

BACKGROUND: A significant number of developing countries have no facilities to produce medical radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals. OBJECTIVE: In this paper we show that access to life-saving radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals and the geographical distribution of corresponding infrastructure is highly unbalanced worldwide. METHODS: We discuss the main issues which need to be addressed in order to establish the production of radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals, which are especially important for developing countries as newcomers in the field. The data was gathered from several sources, including databases maintained by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), World Health Organization (WHO), and other international organizations; personal interactions with representatives in the nuclear medicine field from different regions of the world; and relevant literature. RESULTS: Developing radioisotope and radiopharmaceutical production program and installing corresponding infrastructure requires significant investments, both man-power and financial. Support already exists to help developing countries establish their medical radioisotope production installations from several organizations, such as IAEA. CONCLUSION: This work clearly shows that access to life-saving radioisotopes and the geographical distribution of corresponding infrastructure is highly unbalanced. Technology transfer is important as it not only immediately benefits patients, but also provides employment, economic activity and general prosperity in the region to where the technology transfer is implemented.

A hybrid method on sourceless sensitivity calculation for airborne gamma-ray spectrometer.

The sensitivity calculation of airborne gamma-ray spectrometer (AGS) is usually performed by on-ground or in-flight calibration. However, both methods are cost-ineffective or not permissive, especially for artificial radioisotopes with short half-lives. Alternative to these methods is the Monte Carlo simulation, which has been widely applied over the last few decades. The greatest challenge to the practicability of the Monte Carlo simulation in the AGS calibration is its low computational efficiency for ensuring an acceptable reliability. This article proposes a hybrid numerical method for the sourceless AGS calibration by combining the deterministic point-kernel approach and the Monte Carlo simulation. This method is not only more efficient than the source-based calibration by an empirical method, but also independent of the source availability for on-ground or in-flight calibration. For a given soil test model, AGS sensitivities calculated by this hybrid method agree well with those obtained from the empirical method for the in-flight calibration.