The controversial Lucas Heights reactor in southern Sydney is set to ramp up its production of nuclear medicine doses with an aim to meet up to a quarter of world demand.

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) has just produced its four millionth dose of nuclear medicine at Lucas Heights since the opening of the OPAL reactor eight years ago.

The nation's only nuclear reactor currently produces 10,000 doses a day for 250 hospitals around the country.

Nuclear medicine is a branch of medical imaging that uses small amounts of radioactive material to diagnose, treat and determine the severity of a variety of diseases.

It can detect and help with the diagnosis of many types of cancers, heart disease, gastrointestinal, endocrine, neurological disorders and other abnormalities.

Construction is underway on a new production plant which ANSTO estimated could lift production capacity of nuclear medicine to up to 13 million doses a year.

Chairman of ANSTO Nuclear Medicine Pty Ltd, Doug Cubbin, told the ABC's Australia Wide program that Lucas Heights is set to capitalise on the fact that most reactors around the world are nearly 60 years old and do not have the capacity to produce nuclear medicine on a large scale.

Four-year-old Evie Weir's treatment is being guided by regular whole body scans. ( ABC News: Philippa McDonald )

"So, basically this facility will produce more than 25 per cent the global demand of [nuclear medicine]," Mr Cubbin said.

"The end game is that this is the work horse of nuclear medicine.

"It's used in 80 per cent of nuclear medicine procedures around the world."

Australia entered the nuclear age in 1958 with the opening of the Lucas Heights, or HIFAR reactor, and eight years ago it was replaced by the nation's only working reactor, OPAL, which uses low enriched uranium.

Inside the reactor, uranium alloy is bombarded by neutrons for almost two weeks and cooled in the storage pool.

The site, 30 kilometres south of Sydney, is one of the most secure infrastructure facilities in the country.

"There is a protective barrier around the reactor building and that barrier is designed to international standards whereby it would repel a light aircraft collision if that were to take place," David Vittorio, the reactor's manager said.

"We're very safe here, I mean the Fukushima incident was a very large seismic event followed by very large tidal waves.

"The ground we're on now is very stable from a geological point of view, we're several kilometres from the coast."

Nuclear medicine hailed as vital for treating cancer

It is estimated one of every two Australians will rely on a diagnosis currently made possible by nuclear medicine in their lifetime.

Evie Weir undergoes a scan as she is treated for a cancer of the nervous system. ( ABC News: Philippa McDonald )

Evie Weir is nearly four years old and has been treated for neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nervous system, for almost half her life.

Her treatment is being guided by regular whole body scans.

"The evolution of new technology has really been quite superb and we're learning more and more how different cancers respond and how they grow, how quickly they grow, how well they respond when we're treating them," said Evie's doctor, Professor Robert Howman-Giles, who is the head of nuclear medicine at The Children's Hospital Westmead.

"That dictates then what the protocol for their treatment is, so are we winning or are we not, for example. If we're not then we should be using another."

"We're just hoping and praying it's going to be a good result," Evie's mother, Sarah Weir said.

"She's such a special little girl and she's just taught us so much throughout the journey just how she's gone through such traumatic experiences just with such grace and that's actually her middle name - so Evie Grace."

Nuclear waste remains controversial

However for decades the site has been at the centre of protests by anti-nuclear campaigners concerned about the safety of a reactor on the edge of Australia's largest city.

Professor Robert Howman-Giles says the development of nuclear medicine has been especially crucial in the treatment of many types of cancers. ( ABC News: Philippa McDonald )

In 2001, Greenpeace campaigners got past the razor wire and scaled the old reactor.

"They don't really have anywhere to dispose of this waste so they're going to store it at Lucas Heights as an interim arrangement," Friends of the Earth spokesman and nuclear physicist Jim Green said.

Nuclear waste has in the past been shipped to France for reprocessing and some time this year much of that intermediate-level waste will be returned to Lucas Heights for storage.

Just how to dispose of the nuclear waste remains a challenge, and while the production of nuclear medicine is 30 per cent of the business at ANSTO, nuclear medicine is responsible for 80 per cent of the waste.

In a statement, an ANSTO spokesman said $22.3 million had been allocated in this year's federal budget to refit two waste storage facilities over the next four years.

"ANSTO has increasing domestic and global demand for our nuclear medicines, we need to increase capacity to safely manage associated by-products, and we need to prepare for the availability of national waste facility," the statement said.

"This funding will allow us to do all three."