Automated radiosynthesis of 68Ga for large-scale routine production using 68Zn pressed target

Aiman H Alnahwi; Sébastien Tremblay; Samia Ait-Mohand; Jean-François Beaudoin; Brigitte Guérin

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.109014

Automated radiosynthesis of ⁶⁸Ga for large-scale routine production using ⁶⁸Zn pressed target

Appl Radiat Isot. 2020 Feb:156:109014. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.109014. Epub 2019 Dec 4.

Authors

Aiman H Alnahwi¹, Sébastien Tremblay¹, Samia Ait-Mohand¹, Jean-François Beaudoin², Brigitte Guérin³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine and Radiobiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, 12e Avenue Nord, Sherbrooke, QC, J1H 5N4, Canada.
² Sherbrooke Molecular Imaging Center (CIMS) of the CRCHUS, 3001, 12e Avenue Nord, Sherbrooke, QC, J1H 5N4, Canada.
³ Department of Nuclear Medicine and Radiobiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, 12e Avenue Nord, Sherbrooke, QC, J1H 5N4, Canada; Sherbrooke Molecular Imaging Center (CIMS) of the CRCHUS, 3001, 12e Avenue Nord, Sherbrooke, QC, J1H 5N4, Canada. Electronic address: brigitte.guerin2@usherbrooke.ca.

PMID: 32056692
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.109014

Abstract

Gallium-68 (⁶⁸Ga) has attracted increasing interest in recent years due to the expanding clinical applications of ⁶⁸Ga-based radiopharmaceuticals (Rahbar et al., 2017). ⁶⁸Ga is mainly produced via ⁶⁸Ge/⁶⁸Ga generators that are limited in yield by the ⁶⁸Ge activity (typically up to 1.85 GBq at calibration time). With the increased-demand of ⁶⁸Ga in nuclear medicine for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, there is a need for more efficient and robust production methods to obtain larger amounts of [⁶⁸Ga]GaCl₃ with high radionuclidic and radiochemical purity and apparent molar activity (AMA) for facilitating the distribution of ⁶⁸Ga-based radiopharmaceuticals. The objectives of this study were to develop a fast and efficient process for the preparation of ⁶⁸Zn-based solid targets and to optimize the critical parameters for the automated radiosynthesis of [⁶⁸Ga]GaCl₃ for large-scale routine production.

Keywords: (68)Zn-pressed target; Automated cassette-based module; Cyclotron/proton irradiation; Magnetic target carrier.