Creating ultra short lived medical isotopes

Several dozen radioisotopes are used in medicine for imaging and therapy.  Their value depends on the strength of the radioactivity and how long they last.  Technetium 99, the most widely used for imaging, has a half-life of 6 hours; selenium, 120 days.  Researchers at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and Argonne National Laboratory are working toward a hybrid preparation of scandium 43, with a half-life of 3.9 hours, for imaging, and scandium 47 which would be absorbed into a tumor for its destruction.  Both isotopes would be given at the same time.  MORE

 Image Credit: University of Alabama-Birmingham