Fission molybdenum for medical use

Technetium-99m is today the most widely used radionuclide in modern diagnostic nuclear medicine and very likely this will remain so for the foreseeable future. The over increasing demand for this radionuclide, both in developed and developing countries, may call for a greater production capacity and availability, particularly in the developing countries. However, there are indications that the availability of highly enriched uranium targets used for the production of 99Mo generators may be restricted in the future and that new or modified target technologies and separation methods have to be investigated to ensure a high quality and economical 99Mo/99mTc product when using low enriched uranium targets. The following questions were discussed at this meeting: target technology development, current-process technology, waste disposal, economic factors, proliferation concerns, safeguards, quality assurance and control possibilities for technology transfer. All the contributions presented at the meeting (13 papers) are included in the report. A separate abstract was prepared for each of these papers. Refs, figs and tabs