Luo Tsai-Yueh, Lo Ai-Ren, Hsieh Bor-Tsung, Lin Wuu-Jyh
Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Taoyuan, Taiwan ROC.
Appl Radiat Isot. 2007 Jan;65(1):21-5. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2006.03.016. Epub 2006 May 24.
Rhenium-188 is extremely suitable for the radiotherapy of balloon dilation for the coronary artery restenosis. To satisfy the need of highly concentrated (188)Re-perrhenate for the clinical applications, we designed an apparatus to achieve the purpose of concentrating (188)Re-perrhenate solution. This apparatus comprised of a concentrator, a control box and a computer with an automatic control program. A column of cation-exchange resin in Ag(+) form and an anion-exchange column in series were used in the concentration procedure. More than 90% of (188)Re isotope in the original solution could be collected with 1mL of 0.9% NaCl solution added to collect the (188)Re adsorbed in the column in this final process (90.7+/-2.2%, n=15). We also found that the radiochemical purity in the final solution remained unchanged (100%). The designed process could automatically increase the quality and efficiency of the production of highly concentrated rhenium-188 solution, and could also reduce the radiation dose absorbed by the operator.
