An agreement was signed yesterday between the Ministry of Health, the Sri Lanka Atomic Energy Board, and Access International to establish a cyclotron facility in Sri Lanka. This facility will enable the local production of Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a radiopharmaceutical used in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans, which are essential for diagnosing and monitoring cancer.
Currently, Sri Lanka imports FDG from India. However, due to the short shelf life of FDG, 97% of the imported material becomes unusable by the time it reaches the country. As a result, the only PET scanner in Sri Lanka is used just once a week, leading to limited access to scans and high costs for patients. A PET scan at a private hospital costs around LKR 285,000, compared to approximately LKR 40,000 in India.
The new cyclotron facility will help reduce these costs by producing FDG locally and increasing the availability of PET scans in government hospitals. This development is expected to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment across the country.