F-18 Synthesizer

描述(由申请人提供)：马萨诸塞州综合医院长期以来一直是开发和应用PET技术解决具有生物医学重要性的问题的先驱。MGH PET成像计划得到了NIH资助的研究的积极支持，这些研究致力于解决实验药理学、肿瘤生物学、分子成像和认知神经科学领域中的基本重要问题。鉴于日益增长的临床需求和设备的老化，MGH临床园区现有的PET设施对研究活动的增长潜力有限。MGH PET成像工作在将最新的科学发展从工作台转移到床边方面取得了巨大的成功。在肿瘤学、神经学和心脏病学领域，PET成像用于解决特定患者相关临床问题的应用已显著增加。随着人们越来越多地认识到PET对患者护理的临床影响，临床对医院园区现有的MGH PET设施的需求正在升级。该设施的使用率接近饱和，完全无法跟上研究园区可能范围内不断增长的研究需求。在主校区已经不堪重负的PET设施的限制下，对PET的需求大大增加，以支持不断扩大的研究应用范围。最初，查尔斯敦的PET成像设施将有两个位于Martinos中心的成像设备。首先，HRRT-PET相机将在几个月内安装完毕。第二个是用于动物成像的协和微PET系统。该系统已经在主校园的一个临时实验室中运行，并将在回旋加速器工作后转移到查尔斯敦的设施中。MGH已经承诺在2007年前安装它。预计随着该计划的发展，还将增加更多的成像仪器。目前提议的F-18合成器的资金将在我们为HRRT-PET系统合成放射性配体的计划中提供关键组成部分。此外，在用微型PET成像仪进行的临床前动物研究中，对F-18标记的放射性药物的需求也在增加。考虑到MGH研究园区的卓越生物医学成像研究社区，Martinos中心广泛的多模式成像资源，现有MGH临床园区PET设施严重超负荷的状态，以及现有的技术专长和基础设施，拟议的F-18合成器资源将立即提高研究计划的效率、可及性和创新，并完成MGH提供综合生物医学成像研究环境的战略。拟议的氟-18合成器具有目前可用于生产氟-18标记放射性药物的商业系统中最高的性能。合成器必须在设计中平衡多个因素，以满足性能、可访问性和对研究环境的适应性要求。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Massachusetts General Hospital has long been a pioneer in the development and application of PET technology to problems of biomedical importance. The MGH PET imaging program is actively supported by NIH-funded research addressing questions of fundamental importance in fields of experimental pharmacology, tumor biology, molecular imaging, and cognitive neuroscience. The current PET facilities at the MGH clinical campus have limited growth potential for research activity given the increasing clinical demands and the age of the equipments. The MGH PET imaging effort has had great success in translating recent scientific developments from the bench to the bedside. The use of PET imaging to address specific patient related clinical questions has risen dramatically, especially in the areas of oncology, neurology and cardiology. As a result of growing awareness of the clinical impact of PET on patient care, clinical demands on the existing MGH PET facility on the hospital campus are escalating. The facility is utilized near capacity and simply will be unable to keep pace with growing research demands of the scope possible on the research campus. The greatly increasing need for PET to support an expanding range of research applications simply cannot be met within the constraints of the already overburdened PET facilities at the main campus. Initially, the PET imaging facility in Charlestown will have two imaging devices located at the Martinos Center. The first, the HRRT-PET camera will be installed in a few months. The second is a Concord microPET system for animal imaging. This system is already operating in a temporary laboratory on the main campus and will be transferred to the Charlestown facility after the cyclotron is working. The MGH has committed to install it by 2007. It is expected that additional imaging instruments will be added as the program grows. Funding of the currently proposed F-18 synthesizer will provide a critical component in our plan to synthesize radioligands for the HRRT-PET system. In addition, there is an increasing demand of F-18 labeled radiopharmaceuticals in preclinical animal studies conducted with the microPET imager. Given the exceptional biomedical imaging research community co-located at the MGH research campus, the broad multi-modality imaging resources of the Martinos Center, the critically overburdened state of the existing MGH clinical campus PET facilities, and the existing technical expertise and infrastructure in place, the proposed F-18 synthesizer resource would immediately increase the efficiency, accessibility, and innovation of research programs, and complete the MGH's strategy to provide an integrated biomedical imaging research environment. The proposed fluorine-18 synthesizer has the highest performance of the commercial systems currently available for production fluorine-18 labeled radiopharmaceuticals. The synthesizer must balance a number of factors in the design to fulfill requirements for performance, accessibility and fitness to the research environment.