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In the midst of Ontario’s agricultural heartland, Bruce Power, the supplier of a third of the province’s electricity, periodically performs a different kind of harvest – the kind that saves lives.
This harvest involves the removal of cobalt-60 from Bruce Power’s Bruce B generating station, where this gamma-ray-emitting long-lived isotope has been created by bombarding cobalt-59 with neutrons. From there, cobalt-60 makes its way into health-care facilities in Canada and around the world to be used to sterilize medical devices, battle cancer and treat brain tumours.
“For more than 60 years, Canada has been a global leader in the research, development and production of medical isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals, leading the world in the fight against cancer and keeping our hospitals clean and safe,” says James Scongack, chief development officer and executive vice president, Operational Services, Bruce Power.
This impressive track record – combined with a well-developed nuclear supply chain for medical isotopes – has cemented Canada’s leadership position for “developing new and innovative technologies and approaches to deploying isotopes for improving global health,” says Scongack, who also chairs the Canadian Nuclear Isotope Council (CNIC).
Representing nearly 70 Canadian companies, non-profit organizations and research institutions, the CNIC is “a way of leveraging the scale of what we have in Canada and bringing the best talent together,” he says. “We have a lot of players – and components of the value stream – with a very focused expertise.”
Clean & STERILE
Medical sterilization is an aspect of modern health care that has always been important but has moved even more to the forefront during the fight against COVID-19. “Decades ago, health-care facilities faced considerable challenges related to creating clean, sterile and safe environments in order to reduce infections,” says Scongack. “Cobalt-60 has played a key role as an effective and safe way of sterilizing massive volumes.”
Demand for medical sterilization rose sharply due to the coronavirus pandemic, and Bruce Power met the challenge by producing enough cobalt-60 to sterilize up to 25 billion pairs of medical gloves or COVID swabs or other pieces of medical equipment in 2020 alone, he says. “The world has always relied on Canada for the supply of cobalt-60, and Bruce Power is one of the largest providers of cobalt-60 used in sterilization.”
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ACCURATE & life-saving
People typically picture brain surgery as a process that involves opening the skull and membranes surrounding the brain to treat injuries or illness affecting the brain tissue. In Gamma Knife surgery, however, some 200 invisible radiation beams are used to treat a tumour or another target with sub-millimetre accuracy. While a strong dose of radiation is delivered to the place where the beams meet, they have very little effect on the healthy brain tissue they pass through.
It is, in other words, a surgery without incision that relies on “the life-saving power of high specific activity cobalt-60, of which Bruce Power is a leading producer,” says Scongack. “For many brain cancers, cobalt-60 therapy is one of the most precise and advanced forms of radiation treatment available.”
Investments in cancer control – including prevention, early detection and treatment – have helped to increase overall survival rate in cancer patients from about 25 per cent in the 1940s to 60 per cent today, he notes. “Continuing to make those investments is critical at a time when the Canadian Cancer Society predicts that one in two Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. An even larger number of people around the world will be touched directly or indirectly by cancer, and these people are counting on Canada.”
When it leaves Bruce Power (top), cobalt-60 makes its way across the world to fight cancer, including brain tumours in Gamma Knife surgery (shown here).SUPPLIED
INNOVATIVE & collaborative
Today, more than 10,000 hospitals around the world use medical isotopes for sterilization, diagnostic imaging and cancer treatment. “Canada’s nuclear isotope program pioneered a number of medical applications that are widely used today, and much of that work has been focused on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer,” says Scongack.
Bruce Power is currently spearheading another innovative isotope technology, focused on producing lutetuim-177 by irradiating the stable isotope ytterbium.
“Lutetium-177 is regarded as one of the emerging medical isotopes since it’s used for some very severe forms of prostate cancer and neuroendocrine tumours,” he asserts. “There is a growing demand worldwide, and we work to ensure more patients have access to these treatments.”
Partnerships are essential for maximizing Canada’s potential in medical isotope production, he believes. Bruce Power, for example, collaborates with key industry partners and has also teamed up with the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, on whose traditional territories the generating station operates.
“We formed a unique partnership for creating economic opportunities for our local First Nations communities related to the production of lutetium-177,” he says. “We plan to take this methodology and later expand it to other applications.”
Canada has already established itself as a leader in sustainable, reliable and scalable isotope production, and this can serve as a strong foundation for economic recovery, Scongack says. “By focusing on areas where we are known to play a critical role, we are contributing to the Canadian advantage as an isotope superpower. And the world looks to Canada to continue its position as vanguard of isotope and nuclear innovation.”
Advertising feature produced by Randall Anthony Communications in partnership with Bruce Power. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved in its creation.