I think that's a question that lies at the heart of the future planning and the future evolution of our discipline that I mentioned. I think at the moment there's no doubt that the use of reactors to produce molybdenum is the most effective way of producing medical isotopes.
We need to remember we're talking about technetium and diagnostic scans. Iodine-131 is used to treat patients with thyroid cancer, and in my own practice, patients with neural endocrine tumours are a significant part of the patient population I see.
I think the challenge we have as a community is twofold. The first is how do we ensure that we can continue to provide the technetium-based tests that we're currently providing? The second challenge, and this is the much more important one for our patients, is how do we actually introduce the next generation of tests, those that are going to lead to personalized medicine?
Jean-Luc eloquently described the role of nuclear medicine imaging in the biological characterization of disease, allowing the selection of the right test for the right patient at the right time. That is the challenge that I believe we have to face and address going forward. Whether we do that with a distributed system, large central reactors, or whether we rely on new imaging technologies or new software technologies, I'm not sure. But it is going to involve new radiopharmaceuticals, it is going to involve the regulation of new radiopharmaceuticals, and it's going to involve the development of the evidence base that allows us to introduce those into clinical practice.