When Imaging Associates of Providence learned that FedEx was discontinuing an early morning weekday flight from Seattle to Anchorage, the medical technology center knew the change could mean a major inconvenience for its patients. And it wasn't alone. Alaska's four other centers housing the specialized equipment that allows doctors to visualize disease in the body, like cancer, Alaskan patients in need of scans for diagnosis, assessment or evaluation of treatment effectiveness might have suddenly found themselves in a tough spot.
Without access to a radioactive medicine patients take to prepare their bodies for an imaging exam, the equipment is useless. The medicine, a radioactive isotope prepared in a sugar solution, called fluorodeoxyglucose or FDG, is not made in Alaska and must be used within 12 hours of the formula's completion. That gives Alaska's imaging centers capable of conducting hi-tech body scans known as positron emission tomography, or PET, a very limited window of time in which to get the medicine from a Seattle-based manufacturer to patients in the Last Frontier.
Handling on the ground in Seattle can take about three and half hours, and the flight itself can be another three and a half hours. That leaves just five hours to get the medicine off of a plane once it's in Anchorage, into a patient, and conduct the scan.
The scans help doctors determine not just that a patient has a lump or mass, but how the cells of that mass are functioning. It can be used to help determine if something is cancerous, how much it has progressed, whether it's spread and whether treatments are working.
Citing poor third quarter earnings – due both to changes in international markets and customers choosing lower cost, slower delivery methods – FedEx gave notice it would be stopping the early morning cargo flight to Anchorage in late April, sending Imaging Associates of Alaska and other PET providers into a scramble to find an air carrier to step in.
"This affected every provider in Alaska. Without this delivery flight there would be no PET scans available in Alaska," explained Keith Radecic, CEO of Imaging Associates of Providence.
FedEx's business decision reflects how dependent Alaskans are on the aviation industry.
"The cancelled flight service meant Alaska medical providers would be facing the prospect of having to refer patients to the Lower 48, or patients not even having access to these vital, often life-altering studies to assist in management of their cancer care," Radecic said in a prepared release discussion the situation.
"We can have the best technology on the world, but without the manufacturer giving us dose, it's useless," he said in a follow-up phone call Thursday.
However, this is a story about an access-to care crisis that never came to be.
Alaska Airlines has figured out how to fill the void, getting the necessary permissions to handle the specialized drug and commit to efficiently getting it daily from Seattle to Anchorage, Radecic said. The carrier already had an early morning flight headed to Anchorage from Seattle, but needed to jump through some hoops to qualify to transport the medication. He's not yet sure whether the change in shipping method with increase or decrease the cost of the medication, which runs $350-$400 per dose, he said.
Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadisapatch.com