Eckert & Ziegler have developed a cartridge based system which can produce, amongst other things fluorine-18 (F-18) sodium fluoride radiopharmaceutical.
A radiopharmaceutical consisting of the sodium salt of fluoride with radioisotopic and bone mineralizing activities. Fluoride binds to calcium ions in hydroxyapatite crystals in bone. The uptake and incorporation of positron-emitting fluorine F 18 fluoride into bone can be imaged using positron emission tomography (PET) or single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), allowing visualization of malignant bone lesions in which regional blood flow and bone turnover are increased. Nuclear medicine advocates believe that PET bone scans could provide an alternative to SPECT bone studies, which use the technetium-99m radiopharmaceutical that is currently in short supply.
Due to the closure of the National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, which produces most of North America's supply of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) there has been worldwide shortage of supply. Mo-99 decays into technetium-99m, which is the primary radioisotope used for SPECT bone studies.
F-18 sodium fluoride PET could lighten some of the load placed on Nuclear Medicine departments because the radiopharmaceutical can be produced on demand at a cyclotron.
There are also clinical justifications for performing PET-based bone scans rather than SPECT. The image quality of PET studies is far superior to SPECT exams, and even if Mo-99 were adequately supplied, PET would take should take over at least 10% to 20% of bone studies due to its better resolution.
Posted on 06 Aug 2009
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