The Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG) in the Netherlands predicts it will be late October or November before it can resume production at the High Flux Reactor in Petten.
The facility was closed temporarily last month for repairs, igniting concerns that it would lead to a worldwide shortage of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), the precursor to technetium-99m, the most widely used isotope in nuclear medicine.
The continued closure "will have an impact on the medical isotope market," a statement from the NRG noted. "NRG will not produce any medical isotopes in the months September and October (until 25th of October). We have already informed our customers about the situation. We are assisting in the search for alternative supply routes."
In late April, Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL) said that its Chalk River nuclear reactor in Ontario would not be able to make up for the Dutch shortage and meet the global demand for medical radioactive isotopes, even if Chalk River increased production.
Related Reading
AECL: Increased production won't cover demand, August 29, 2008
SNM has 'serious concerns' over isotope situation, August 28, 2008
AECL monitors isotope supply after Dutch shutdown, August 26, 2008
SNM draft report shows U.S. Mo-99 production years away, July 22, 2008
MDS sues AECL for $1.6 billion over Maple reactors, July 9, 2008
Copyright © 2008 AuntMinnie.com
![Overview of the study design. (A) The fully automated deep learning framework was developed to estimate body composition (BC) (defined as subcutaneous adipose tissue [SAT] in liters; visceral adipose tissue [VAT] in liters; skeletal muscle [SM] in liters; SM fat fraction [SMFF] as a percentage; and intramuscular adipose tissue [IMAT] in deciliters) from MRI. The fully automated framework comprised one model (model 1) to quantify different BC measures (SAT, VAT, SM, SMFF, and IMAT) as three-dimensional (3D) measures from whole-body MRI scans. The second model (model 2) was trained to identify standardized anatomic landmarks along the craniocaudal body axis (z coordinate field), which allowed for subdividing the whole-body measures into different subregions typically examined on clinical routine MRI scans (chest, abdomen, and pelvis). (B) BC was quantified from whole-body MRI in over 66,000 individuals from two large population-based cohort studies, the UK Biobank (UKB) (36,317 individuals) and the German National Cohort (NAKO) (30,291 individuals). Bar graphs show age distribution by sex and cohort. BMI = body mass index. (C) After the performance assessment of the fully automated framework, the change in BC measures, distributions, and profiles across age decades were investigated. Age-, sex-, and height-adjusted body composition reference curves were calculated and made publicly available in a web-based z-score calculator (https://circ-ml.github.io).](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/05/body-comp.XgAjTfPj1W.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
