Production of copper-64 and gallium-68 with a medical cyclotron using liquid targets

Abstract

This work describes the production of two clinically relevant metal radioisotopes [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] with a medical cyclotron by the irradiation of liquid targets. New results are presented for the implementation of this methodology in a fully automated system, using commercially available equipment. Liquid target solutions containing enriched [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] were loaded, bombarded and transferred to synthesis modules where a purified solution containing the desired radiometal is obtained and can then be used to further radiolabeling within only one hour after End-Of-Bombardment (EOB). Typical production runs using enriched material lead to the production of 5 GBq and 6 GBq (0.14 MBq/([Formula: see text]Ah ⋅ mg) and 1.5 MBq/([Formula: see text]Ah ⋅ mg)) of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]; although the technique can be used to obtain up to 25 GBq and 40 GBq, respectively, by simply scaling up the amount of the enriched material. Purified solutions containing [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] were obtained within 30 min after EOB and used to produce [Formula: see text]-ATSM and [Formula: see text]–DOTA–NOC, respectively, with quality parameters suitable for human use.