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SASKATOON – The Saskatchewan Centre for Cyclotron Sciences will soon be able to provide material for medical tests that can detect diseases such as cancer.

The facility at the University of Saskatchewan says it has been cleared by Health Canada to provide medical isotopes to Royal University Hospital for PET-CT scans.

Radioisotopes are produced by irradiating a target material with a beam of particles produced by the cyclotron.

The cyclotron will also provide isotopes for use in medical research.

Neil Alexander, executive director of the centre, said the cyclotron is expected to start producing the material that will be used in medical tests next month.

Construction of the $25-million cyclotron facility began in 2013 and was completed in November 2014.

“These achievements signal the beginning of the operational life of Saskatchewan’s cyclotron, providing radioisotopes for use by researchers and soon for use by physicians to diagnose Saskatchewan patients,”Alexander said in a release Thursday.

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