Investigating Alternative Nuclear Reactions for Medical Isotope Production

医用同位素替代核反应的研究 摘要 用于核医学或被认为是核医学的良好候选者的放射性核素系列在2000年有所扩大。 近年在这些放射性核素中，44Sc和67Cu已经显示出用于诊断和治疗的巨大前景。 治疗应用，分别。与从研究规模转换44Sc和67Cu相关的挑战 长期医疗用途的困难在于难以大量生产这些放射性核素中的每一种。的 生产的限制是由于低横截面（概率）的核反应，创造了 这些同位素的纯粹供应。由于使用粒子束的生产路线通常用于医疗 由于同位素（质子、中子、氘）不能产生足够的截面，因此拟议的工作旨在 研究采用重离子束反应。重离子束，如7Li，提供了产生 67 Cu和44 Ti（44 Ti是44 Sc的母体）。拟议的研究将集中在 测量这些反应的横截面。此外，辐照后放射化学将 因此，可以将放射性核素的最终纯度与当前的生产方法进行比较。 成功展示具有可比放射性核素纯度的更高生产率将提供 这些宝贵的医用同位素的额外生产路线。

Investigating Alternative Nuclear Reactions for Medical Isotope Production ABSTRACT The array of radionuclides used for, or considered as good candidates for, nuclear medicine has expanded in recent years. Of these radionuclides 44Sc and 67Cu have shown great promise for use in diagnostic and therapeutic applications, respectively. A challenge associated with translating 44Sc and 67Cu from research scale to long-term medical use is the difficulty in producing each of these radionuclides in large quantities. The production limitation is due to the low cross sections (the probability) of the nuclear reactions that create the purist supply of these isotopes. Since production routes using particle beams commonly used for medical isotopes (protons, neutrons, deuterons) do not result in sufficient cross sections, the proposed work aims to investigate employing heavy ion beam reactions. Heavy ion beams, such as 7Li, offer the potential to produce 67Cu and 44Ti (44Ti is the 44Sc parent) at higher cross sections. The proposed research will focus on the measurement of the cross sections for such reactions. Additionally, post irradiation radiochemistry will be performed so that the final purity of the radionuclides can be compared to the current production methods. Successful demonstration of higher production rates with comparable radionuclide purity will offer an additional production route to make these valuable medical isotopes.