India’s Heavy Water Board, a unit of the state-owned Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), has developed a technique to isolate the rare isotope Oxygen-18 from the air, for use in the treatment of early stage cancer. A scientist at the Board said that water containing oxygen-18 is used to make fluorine-18 which can be used to make radioactive glucose, which is preferentially taken up by brain and cancer cells and is an essential element in the early diagnosis of cancer that can be determined by positron emission tomography (PET)
A common use for PET is to measure the rate of consumption of glucose in different parts of the body. Accumulation of the radio-labelled glucose allows measurement of the rate of consumption of glucose. One clinical use of this is to distinguish between benign and malignant tumors (malignant tumors metabolize glucose at a faster rate than benign tumors). Whole body scans are often performed to stage a cancer. Currently in India PET testing is expensive, but radioactive glucose from fluorine-18 will now be made available at a lower cost in the country, leading to a corresponding decrease in the cost of cancer treatment.
The Advanced Center for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer, a unit of the Tata Memorial Center in Navi Mumbai tested the efficacy of the radioactive glucose from Fluorine-18 and found that its quality was comparable to the imported product.
The heavy water is produced in a plant at Manuguru, in India’s southern state of Telangana. Currently the production of this water is only a few pounds, but the production can be scaled up as needed.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
