RPRD | Development of an Automatic Synthesis Module for 68Ga radiopharmaceuti…

Yong-Hyun Cho¹, Jae Min Jeong¹ *, Yun-Sang Lee¹, Young Joo Kim¹, Bo Yeun Yang¹, Young Chul Lee², Hong-Jae Lee¹, 

Hyun-Joo Kim¹, Dong Soo Lee¹

¹Department of Nuclear Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea

²Department of Biomedical Engineering, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea

Purpose

68Ga (T 1/2 = 67.6 min) is an attractive PET radionuclide, which is produced from 68Ge-68Ga generator by simple elution with 0.1 M HCl solution. Because the use of 68Ga labeled radiopharmaceutical is increasing in the clinical routine, the need for easy and convenient method of 68Ga labeling is also increasing. We developed an automatic synthesis module for 68Ga labeling procedure, and applied to routine synthesis of 68Ga- NOTA-RGD for angiogenesis imaging.

Materials and Methods

An automatic labeling module for 68Ga was designed and constructed. The module was connected to the elution line of 68Ge-68Ga generator. It was composed of eight solenoid valves, a reaction vessel, a heating mantle, and a gas controller. This module was controlled by free download PC program, WinPLC, and the flow of the reagents was controlled by nitrogen gas flow adjusted by a gas controller. The final product was purified and sterilized by passing through a Sep-Pak Light Alumina N cartridge and a 0.22 um syringe filter, and then collected in a product vial. 68Ga-NOTA-RGD was synthesized by the previously reported method and checked the radiochemical yield, radiochemical purity and total labeling time. Radiochemical purity was analyzed by ITLC-SG plates which were eluted with 0.1 M Sodium Carbonate. Free 68Ga remained at the origin and 68Ga-NOTA-RGD moved with the solvent front.

Results

68Ga-NOTA-RGD was synthesized 8 times and radiolabeling yield was 65.42±2.42% without decay correction. The radiochemical purity was above 95% and total labeling time was 19.2 minutes.

 

Conclusion

We developed an automatic synthesis module for 68Ga labeling procedure, and evaluated its feasibility for routine synthesis 68Ga-NOTA-RGD.