Cancer testing equipment back on line
Posted Nov 9, 2015 2:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Alberta Health Services says PET scans should be getting back to normal, following problems with a key piece of equipment in Edmonton.
The Cyclotron ran into mechanical issues, causing a month of delays and cancellations.
AHS has begun rescheduling 65 patients who were awaiting new appointments, as well as booking 300 patients who have been waiting for their first appointments.
they will be booked based on the urgency of their cases.
Chief Medical Director, Dr. Francois Belanger tells 660 NEWS the machine provides ‘one’ of the isotopes needed for PET scans but luckily is not the only one they can draw from.
“The number of cyclotrons in the country is actually fairly limited, but we have the ability to actually buy the product from other provinces and other centres.
Because of that, he says they were still able to accommodate about 70 percent of the scans needed over the last month.
Dr. Belanger says plans are in the works to prevent issues like this from happening in the future, but there is no timeline yet.
AHS IS thanking patients for their understanding and commending staff for working hard to provide service to as many patients as possible. It says approximately 70 per cent of normal patient scan volumes were able to be completed during the shutdown using material sourced from other provinces.
PET scans are often used to detect cancer, or to determine whether it has spread.
