Scientists identify an alternative system for producing the medical isotope scandium-44

Scandium-44 is a promising medical isotope for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. PET allows doctors to measure the activity of the cells in the body to help identify cancer, heart disease, and other conditions. Scandium-44 can be produced through the radioactive decay of titanium-44. Because it decays much more slowly than scandium-44, the same batch of titanium-44 can produce enough scandium-44 for many years of PET scans.