By Elias Hazou
Delivery of medical radioisotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients will resume on Friday, after supply was interrupted due to the closure of Cyprus Airways, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry has made arrangements with manufacturers to send the meds to Cyprus on a Lufthansa flight this Friday to resupply fast-dwindling stocks at state hospitals.
For the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre, a separate arrangement has been reached to transport the radioisotopes via an Austrian airlines flight on Saturday.
Due to the short half-life of the radioisotopes, orders and deliveries are made once a week. Because Cyprus Airways held a license to transport the meds to the island, the airline’s closure last week has already led to shortages.
According to the health ministry, the solution found for the nuclear medicine wards of state hospitals is permanent.
By contrast, the arrangement to supply the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre via Austrian Airlines is a quick fix.
Transport minister Marios Demetriades told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) the government is meanwhile working toward finding a long-term solution for the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre as well.
The health ministry said existing stocks of the radioisotopes at state hospitals will be depleted by Friday – the same day on which deliveries will resume.
According to authorities, due to the shortage, a very small number of routine diagnostic checks on patients had to be called off, although no treatment sessions were cancelled.
Health minister Philippos Patsalis said these treatments would resume once the new batch of medicines arrives.
CNA reported that the last medical radioisotopes at the Limassol Oncology Centre were used up by Monday, inconveniencing cancer patients.
Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre meanwhile had to cancel thyroid cancer treatments due to the lack of radioactive iodine.
Alecos Stamatis, chief executive at the centre, said a number of patients there were inconvenienced as a result.
He explained that deliveries of the meds are necessarily frequent because of the radioisotopes’ short half-life.
Because they emit radiation, the medicines are packaged in special containers made of lead, and delivered to medical centres once a week.
Nicolas Philippou, head of the Cyprus Association of Cancer Patients and Friends (PASYKAF), said that for the time being the situation with the meds is not a cause for concern.
However, any further delays in resupplying might well have put lives at risk, he added.
Daily Politis, which broke the story, reports that in one case manufacturers abroad suggested to importers here sending the meds on board a Turkish Airlines flight via Tymbou airport in the north. The proposal was turned down.
Nuclear medicine uses radiation to provide diagnostic information about the functioning of a person’s specific organs, or to treat them.
In most cases, the information is used by physicians to make a quick, accurate diagnosis of the patient’s illness. The thyroid, bones, heart, liver and many other organs can be easily imaged, and disorders in their function revealed. In some cases radiation can be used to treat diseased organs or tumours.
