Radioactive drug furnace broken, Saigon patient has to go to Hanoi

The Cyclotron system producing 18F-FDG located at Cho Ray Hospital is the sole source of radioactive drugs for PET/CT scans at three hospitals, including Cho Ray, Military Hospital 175 and People's Hospital 115. PET/CT is a means of diagnosing, monitoring and treating many diseases, especially early detection of cancer, and is in high demand.

Dr. Nguyen Xuan Canh, Head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine, Cho Ray Hospital, confirmed that the system has been broken for a month now, forcing hospitals using PET/CT to stop using the method. The system has been sent to the US for repair.

"The radioactive medicine produced has a very short production time, it must be used within 6-8 hours. Therefore, we cannot transfer medicine from far away provinces to replace it," said Dr. Canh.

Every week, Cho Ray Hospital receives about 50 PET/CT scans, Military Hospital 175 and People's Hospital 115 receive about 30 each. Currently, patients who need urgent tests are referred to Da Nang and Hanoi for the procedure.

While other imaging diagnostic methods are usually only applied to one area of ​​the body, PET/CT can examine the whole body, helping to diagnose diseases at the cellular and molecular levels and has high sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy, capable of detecting lesions and diseases at very early stages.

According to Dr. Canh, there are currently many other imaging diagnostic methods such as CT, MRI, ultrasound, bone scintigraphy... that are also very good, and can be combined for patients to bring high efficiency. PET/CT is a method with many advantages, the price of one scan is about more than 26 million VND.

Cho Ray Hospital hopes that the system can be repaired and operational again next week.

"In the future, Ho Chi Minh City should have more radioactive drug production facilities to support each other in case of incidents, as well as develop more PET/CT scanning facilities because patient demand is very high," said Dr. Canh.