HFR Outage and Isotope Supply

The Nuclear Medicine Europe (NMEu) Emergency Response Team alerted its stakeholders on January 24 to a delay in the restart of the High-Flux Reactor (HFR) (Petten, The Netherlands) that was expected to affect the supply of ⁹⁹Mo and ¹⁷⁷Lu for medical uses. The reactor supplies 60% of the European demand for these isotopes and 30% of the worldwide need. According to the accompanying release, the NMEu was informed by the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG), which operates the reactor, that the delay was the result of discovery of a water leak in the reactor beam tube cooling system. Neither workers nor the general public was said to be at risk, and the reactor remained in safe standby status pending investigation of the cause of the leak. Inspections of difficult-to-access piping were performed but were not informative. Additional inspections were planned, and the NRG project team was in place to identify remedial actions and enable the reactor to return to service after regulatory review and approval. Targets had been scheduled to be irradiated in the HFR reactor during the week of January 24 for both ⁹⁹Mo and ¹⁷⁷Lu production, and the delay affected the supply of these radioisotopes. Medical institutions were advised to contact their radioisotope suppliers to determine specific impacts on orders. On January 31, NRG provided an update and noted that investigators had listed options for restoring functionality and intended to select an approach in early February. A target date for HFR restart, however, could not be provided. Some shortages of ⁹⁹Mo/^99mTc were termed inevitable, with additional reports of effects on supplies of ¹⁷⁷Lu and ¹³¹I.

Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group