VANCOUVER — Canadian researchers may have a solution to the world's shortage of radioactive isotopes, essential in thousands of medical imaging procedures.

Researchers in B.C. and Ontario have come up with a recipe to upgrade a cyclotron -- a type of particle accelerator -- allowing it to create medical isotopes traditionally made by nuclear reactors.

The team includes researchers from TRIUMF and the Cancer Agency in B.C., and the Lawson Health Research Institute and Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization in Ontario.

Paul Schaffer, the head of TRIUMF's Nuclear Medicine Division, has told a gathering of international scientists in Vancouver that making the isotopes in hospital cyclotrons is a major milestone for diagnostic imaging for patients around the world.

Researchers say one cyclotron could supply a large metropolitan area and there are dozens of the devices in hospitals across the country that could help hospitals save time and money and reduce delays for patients.

Ninety-five per cent of the world's supply of medical isotopes, which are needed for imaging in diseases in the heart, bones and elsewhere in the body, is produced at just five reactors around the world.