Today, 44Sc is an attractive radionuclide for molecular imaging with PET. In this work, we evaluated a 44Ti/44Sc radionuclide generator based on TEVA resin as a source of 44Sc. The generator prototype (5 MBq) exhibits high 44Ti retention and stable yield of 44Sc (91 ± 6 %) in 1 mL of eluate (20 bed volumes, eluent-0.1 M oxalic acid/0.2 M HCl) during one year of monitoring (more than 120 elutions). The breakthrough of 44Ti did not exceed 1.5 × 10-5% (average value was 6.5 × 10-6%). Post-processing of the eluate for further use in radiopharmaceutical synthesis was proposed. The post-processing procedure using a combination of Presep® PolyChelate and TK221 resins made it possible to obtain 44Sc-radioconjugates with high labeling yield (≥95%) while using small precursor amounts (5 nmol). The proposed method takes no more than 15 min and provides ≥90% yield relative to the 44Sc activity eluted from the generator. The labeling efficiency was demonstrated on the example of [44Sc]Sc-PSMA-617 and [44Sc]Sc-PSMA-I&T synthesis. Some superiority of PSMA-I&T over PSMA-617 in terms of 44Sc labeling efficiency was demonstrated (likely due to presence of DOTAGA chelator in the precursor structure). It was also shown that microwave heating of the reaction mixture considerably shortened the reaction time and improved radiolabeling yield and reproducibility of [44Sc]Sc-PSMA-617 and [44Sc]Sc-PSMA-I&T synthesis.
Keywords: 44Ti/44Sc radionuclide generator; Presep PolyChelate resin; TEVA resin; [44Sc]Sc-PSMA-617; [44Sc]Sc-PSMA-I&T; radiopharmaceuticals; scandium-44.