§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the President of the Board of Trade how much material was available in the United Kingdom on 23 April to make medical radioactive isotope 543W targets for use in cancer treatment; and how many such targets could be manufactured from that quantity of materials. [40752]
§ Mr. BattleOn 23 April, the UKAEA held sufficient Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) of the necessary enrichment, greater than 90 per cent. to produce 7,800 targets which will then be used to produce 39 million doses of Technetium-99m for use in the treatment of cancer and other diseases. This inventory comprised 39 km of HEU in a number of different forms; only 7 km was available as stock material for immediate target manufacture. The use of Technetium-99m continues to grow, currently some 30,000 procedures per day are carried out in Western Europe using this isotope. A wide range of other radioisotopes are used in the treatment of cancer, however the UKAEA play no part in their manufacture. The Government do not have central records of the overall amounts of radioisotopes used for medical purposes.