Current Radiopharmaceuticals - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2012

The most important radioisotope for use in Nuclear Medicine is 99mTc, supplied in the form of a 99Mo/99mTc generator. After the supply crisis of 99Mo starting in 2008 the availability of 99Mo became a worldwide concern. The purpose of this work is to do a brief story of the availability of 99Mo in the world followed by an overview of the production routes of 99Mo and the generators technology.

44Ti/44Sc radionuclide generators are of interest for molecular imaging. The 3.97 hours half-life of 44Sc and its high positron branching of 94.27% may stimulate the application of 44Sc-labeled PET radiopharmaceuticals. This review describes the current status of 44Ti production, 44Ti/44Sc radionuclide generator development, post-processing of generator eluates towards medical application, identification of ligands adequat Read More

68Ge/68Ga radionuclide generators have been investigated for almost fifty years, since the cyclotronindependent availability of positron emitting 68Ga via the 68Ge/68Ga system had always attracted researches working in basic nuclear chemistry as well as radiopharmaceutical chemistry. However, it took decades and generations of research (and researchers) to finally reach a level of 68Ge/68Ga radionuclide generator de Read More

68Ge/68Ga generators have received tremendous attention in the last years based on the success of 68Ga-labelled Somatostatin analogues for Positron-Emission Tomography (PET), which are today used routinely worldwide. Various commercially available generator types are based on different column matrices including TiO2, SnO2 or organic 68Gechelate coated silica, providing 68Ga as Ga3+ in HCl for radiolabeling pr Read More

The alpha emitters 225Ac and 213Bi are promising therapeutic radionuclides for application in targeted alpha therapy of cancer and infectious diseases. Both alpha emitters are available with high specific activity from established radionuclide generators. Their favourable chemical and physical properties have led to the conduction of a large number of preclinical studies and several clinical trials, demonstrating the feasi Read More

Rhenium-188 is one of the most readily available generator derived and useful radionuclides for therapy emitting β- particles (2.12 MeV, 71.1% and 1.965 MeV, 25.6%) and imageable gammas (155 keV, 15.1%). The 188W/188Re generator is an ideal source for the long term (4-6 months) continuous availability of no carrier added (nca) 188Re suitable for the preparation of radiopharmaceuticals for radionuclide therapy. Th Read More

Radium-223 is a short-lived alpha-particle-emitting radionuclide with potential applications in cancer treatment. Research to develop new radiopharmaceuticals employing 223Ra has been hindered by poor availability due to the small quantities of parent actinium-227 available world-wide. The purpose of this study was to develop innovative and cost-effective methods to obtain high-purity 223Ra from 227Ac. We obtai Read More

Yttrium-90 (90Y, T1/2 64.14 h) is a key example of a high beta energy-emitting radionuclide which is available from the strontium-90 (90Sr)/90Y radionuclide generator system. Clinical uses of 90Y-labeled radiopharmaceutical agents have been pursued for many years and many applications have proven to be clinical effective. These most notably include the application of 90Y-labeled antibodies for a variety of applications suc Read More

Positron emission tomography (PET) of slower biological processes calls for the use of longer lived positron emitting radioisotopes. Beyond radionuclide production considerations, practicality and rapidity of subsequent labeling chemistry further limits the selection of radioisotopes with potentially favorable nuclear properties. One additional limitation is the availability of PET radiotracers at the point-of-care with appropri Read More

Electrochemical separation techniques are not widely used in radionuclide generator technology and only a few studies have been reported [1-4]. Nevertheless, this strategy is useful when other parent-daughter separation techniques are not effective or not possible. Such situations are frequent when low specific activity (LSA) parent radionuclides are used for instance with adsorption chromatographic separations, which Read More