Production of therapeutic radioisotopes in the ORNL High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) for applications in nuclear medicine, oncology and interventional cardiology

F. F. Knapp, S. Mirzadeh, A. L. Beets, M. Du

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

65 Scopus citations

Abstract

Greater availability of therapeutic radioisotopes is required to meet the demands for increasing clinical applications in nuclear medicine, oncology and interventional cardiology. Because of the need for very high specific activity products, methods other than direct neutron capture reactions (n,γ-elastic and n,n′-inelastic routes) are required to insure that the highest specific activity - and hopefully no carrier added (nca) - radioisotopes are available. Two major methods to obtain nca radioisotopes from reactors are through the use of radionuclide generator systems using reactor-produced parents and the formation of desired radioisotopes through beta-decay of reactor-produced species. In this paper we describe our recent development of new approaches to obtain nca 177Lu from the decay of reactor-produced 177Yb and free of the long-lived 177mLu (T1/2 = 160 d) radiocontaminant. We also describe preliminary results of our new "indirect" method for the production of 195mPt via decay of 195mIr, reactor-produced by neutron irradiation of highly enriched 193Ir.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)503-509
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry
Volume263
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2005

Funding

Research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) the under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. The authors also thank Dr. Bernard PONSARD and colleagues at the BR2 Reactor Facility, in Mol, Belgium, for irradiating the enriched ytterbium-168 target.

FundersFunder number
U.S. Department of EnergyDE-AC05-00OR22725
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

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