Performance evaluation of Gallium-68 radiopharmaceuticals production using liquid target PETtrace 800 cyclotron

Abstract

Due to increased demand, cyclotron has an expanding role in producing Gallium-68 (⁶⁸Ga) radiopharmaceuticals using solid and liquid targets. Though the liquid target produces lower end-of-bombardment activity compared to the solid target, our study presents the performance of ⁶⁸Ga radiopharmaceuticals production using the liquid target by evaluating the end-of-bombardment activity and the end-of-purification activity of [⁶⁸Ga]GaCl₃. We also present the effect of increasing irradiation time, which significantly improves the end-of-synthesis yield. From the result obtained, the end-of-bombardment activity produced was 4.48 GBq, and the [⁶⁸Ga]GaCl₃ end-of-purification activity produced was 2.51 GBq with below-limit metallic impurities. Increasing the irradiation time showed a significant increase in the end-of-synthesis activity from 1.33 GBq to 1.95 GBq for [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 and from 1.13 GBq to 1.74 GBq for [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE. Based on the improvements made, the liquid target production of ⁶⁸Ga radiopharmaceuticals is feasible and reproducible to accommodate up to 5 patients per production. In addition, this work also discusses the issues encountered, together with the possible corrective and preventative measures.

Keywords: Cyclotron targetry; GE cyclotron; Liquid target; Radiopharmaceutical; Zinc-68.