Hundreds facing scan delays

2:08am Saturday 6th September 2008

Hundreds of patients face delays to vital scans for cancer and other diseases due to a "severe shortage" of imaging agents, experts have warned.

A global shortage of medical isotopes used in scans of hearts, bones, kidneys and some cancers will cause delays and cancellations across the UK in the coming weeks.

British hospitals are currently receiving less than 50% of expected supplies and rations are expected to drop even further, the experts warned.

The isotopes are used in more than 80% of routine diagnostic nuclear imaging procedures.

Professor Alan Perkins, honorary secretary at the British Nuclear Medicine Society, said: "The expected number of people who will be affected is quite difficult to determine at the moment. But we are certainly talking about hundreds of patients here.

"The procedures include cardiac blood flow imaging, bone scanning looking for secondary tumours, lymph node detection in breast cancer and renal function, which is commonly done in children. These patients are going to be facing delays. Clinicians will be addressing the issue on the basis of clinical need."

Prof Perkins said doctors would have the option to use alternative tracers or alternative imaging methods, such as magnetic resonance tomography, in some non-urgent cases.

"But some patients will receive suboptimal diagnostic observation," he said as part of an article on bmj.com, the online website for the British Medical Journal (BMJ). "It will slow up the system."

Prof Perkins also warned that a Government target to scan patients within six weeks could mean some doctors give patients inappropriate tests.

Patients may be given other tests to ensure they do not fall outside the six-week target but it could mean they are not receiving best care, he said. "Patients may be put through inappropriate tests to make sure patients do not breach the six-week pathway."

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