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

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 (T_1/2 = 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.