A decade of achievement for ANSTO's cyclotron

Australia's National Medical Cyclotron (NMC) - the electrical machine that has given doctors the power to accurately diagnose thousands of Australians - is celebrating ten years of operation.

Operated by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in Camperdown, Sydney, the cyclotron has experienced continuously increasing demand for the radiopharmaceuticals it produces since it was opened in 1992.

Cyclotrons belong to a class of machine called particle accelerators, and while the large majority of radiopharmaceuticals in Australia continue to be produed by the HIFAR research reactor at Lucas Heights, demand for both reactor and cyclotron produced radiopharmaceuticals is increading.

Nuclear reactors produce radioisotopes by adding an extra neutron into the atoms of the respective elements, while cyclotrons bombard atoms with different particles (eg, protons or deuterons) to produce isotopes that are deficient in the number of their atoms.

Despite this difference, reactor produced and cyclotron produced radioisotopes are complemetary in nature and both are required to provide the range of diagnostic medical products needed to service Australia's health needs.

The NMC supplies a high proportion of Australia's needs for diagnostic medical radioisotopes such as gallium-67, thallium-201 and iodine-123; while another cyclotron produced radiopharmaceutical experiencing increasing demand is fluorine-18 deoxyglucose (FDG), a radioisotope with a 110 minute half life.

ANSTO is one of only a small number of manufacturing sites around the world with approval to produce FDG, which is the subject of some intensive medical studies into better imaging methods.

Operations Manager at the NMC, Doug Arnott said there have been considerable improvments made to the cyclotron's facilities over the last decade. "This is a considerable achievement, given that we're one of very few facilities in the world producing the range and quality of products we produce, with a single cyclotron, operating more than 100 hours per week," he said.

"We've been able to keep up with a steadily increasing demand for our products. In general, we produce more material, process it more efficiently, perform quality control faster and deliver more efficiently!"

Item provided courtesy of ANSTO