Nuclear data for production and medical application of radionuclides: Present status and future needs

Abstract

Introduction: The significance of nuclear data in the choice and medical application of a radionuclide is considered: the decay data determine its suitability for organ imaging or internal therapy and the reaction cross section data allow optimisation of its production route. A brief discussion of reaction cross sections and yields is given.

Standard radionuclides: The standard SPECT, PET and therapeutic radionuclides are enumerated and their decay and production data are considered. The status of nuclear data is generally good. Some existing discrepancies are outlined. A few promising alternative production routes of ^99mTc and ⁶⁸Ga are discussed.

Research-oriented radionuclides: The increasing significance of non-standard positron emitters in organ imaging and of low-energy highly-ionizing radiation emitters in internal therapy is discussed, their nuclear data are considered and a brief review of their status is presented. Some other related nuclear data issues are also mentioned.

Production of radionuclides using newer technologies: The data needs arising from new directions in radionuclide applications (multimode imaging, theranostic approach, radionanoparticles, etc.) are considered. The future needs of data associated with possible utilization of newer irradiation technologies (intermediate energy cyclotron, high-intensity photon accelerator, spallation neutron source, etc.) are outlined.

Conclusion: Except for a few small discrepancies, the available nuclear data are sufficient for routine production and application of radionuclides. Considerable data needs exist for developing novel radionuclides for applications. The developing future technologies for radionuclide production will demand further data-related activities.

Keywords: Decay data; Diagnosis; Internal radiotherapy; Medical radionuclide; Organ imaging; Reaction cross section.