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 64Cu and 68Ga 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 64Ni and 68Zn 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/(μAh ⋅ mg) and 1.5 MBq/(μAh ⋅ mg)) of 64Cu and 68Ga; 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 64Cu and 68Ga were obtained within 30 min after EOB and used to produce 64Cu-ATSM and 68Ga–DOTA–NOC, respectively, with quality parameters suitable for human use.
