KSA feat in nuclear medicine

King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH&RC) has succeeded in producing radiopharmaceutical-grade generators, which are used in the diagnosis of many chronic and tertiary diseases.
With this accomplishment, the center is now able to fulfill 80 percent of the Kingdom’s nuclear medical needs and has provided a national alternative to substitute imported products.
Dr. Qasim Al-Qasabi, chief executive officer of KFSH&RC, confirmed Sunday that the hospital was able to produce technetium-99m (Tc-99M) generators of radiopharmaceutical-grade with high quality in line with international standards and specifications.
“The product has been successfully used in the few past days in the diagnosis of 65 patients suffering from cardiac, cancer, renal, orthopedic and gastric diseases,” he said.
“This will enable the hospital to stop importing such generators from abroad, which will decrease financial costs and avoid some of the logistical obstacles that may lead to disability access of generators and delayed diagnosis of patients,” Al-Qasabi noted.
Al-Qasabi said that the hospital would begin to increase the production of this type of generators in January in order to cover the needs of hospitals across the Kingdom and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. He also said that the hospital has been able to produce about 100 generators per week, which covers the needs of the Kingdom locally.
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Jammaz, senior research scientist and deputy chairman of the department of cyclotron and radiopharmaceuticals in the Research Center, clarified that the department conducted several accurate and extensive tests to ensure the quality of these generators and the level of their radiological and chemical purity before using them on patients.
The researcher explained that the single generator of the radioactive technetium element (Tc-99M) could be used in the diagnosis of about 200 patients whose cases vary between different cancer, cardiac, brain, liver, renal, pulmonary and orthopedic cases.
He highlighted that the validity of the radioactive element expands to 10 days approximately and is preserved in the department of nuclear medicine in beneficiary hospitals.