TORONTO -- The province is hoping PET scans will help solve the crisis in medical imaging caused by the Chalk River nuclear reactor shutdown.

"It eases the pressure," Dr. Bill Evans, chairman of Ontario's PET scanning steering committee, said yesterday, after Health Minister David Caplan announced the scans for seven different cancers and one cardiac condition would be covered by OHIP starting in the fall.

There are 10 PET -- Positron Emission Tomography -- scanners in Ontario but they've only seen limited use during a lengthy clinical trial.

Evans said three of those scanners are primarily for research but the other seven will now be put to greater use, diagnosing many of the same types of cancer for which medical isotopes from Chalk River were used.

And because a PET -- which uses a radioactive sugar derived from a cyclotron instead of a reactor -- can look at cancer right down at the cell level, it can detect some problems MRIs or CT scans can't, leading to better treatment choices.

DAMAGED TISSUES

It's also effective in telling doctors how badly tissues have been damaged after a serious heart attack, making it easier to tell which patients would benefit from bypass surgery and which would need transplants.

But PET scans can't entirely replace the use of reactor-sourced medical isotopes. Doctors caution they can only help alleviate the crisis caused by the worldwide shortage, which has delayed tests and treatments in some cases.

Ministry officials said they expect to perform 4,365 PET scans a year at a cost of about $1,525 each. That adds up to about $6.7 million a year.

It's money well spent, said Progressive Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer, who has been pushing the government for years to increase PET use.

"Once we recognized we'd have a shortage of medical isotopes over time, it became even more imperative than ever that we get access to the PET scans," she said.

Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin had also been pressuring the government to open the scans to greater use.

"I'm gratified that the ministry has taken my advice and finally moved forward," Marin said in a release.

JONATHAN.JENKINS@SUNMEDIA.CA