Quality control of PET radiopharmaceuticals by high-performance liquid chromatography with tris(2,2'-bipyridyl)ruthenium(II) electrogenerated chemiluminescence detection.

A highly sensitive reversed-phase liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was investigated to analyze a range of positron emission tomography (PET) radiopharmaceuticals using electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) detection. ECL is based on the reaction of PET molecules with tris(2,2'-bipyridyl)ruthenium(III) [Ru(bpy)(3)(3+)], which is generated through the on-line electro-oxidation of Ru(bpy)(3)(2+). In 21 different radiopharmaceuticals studied, 18 compounds could be detected with detection limits (signal-to-noise ratio = 3) of 0.12-72 ng/mL per 20 microL injection. Sufficient reproducibility and linearity were obtained for the quantitative determination of PET molecules in pharmaceutical fluid. This method could be successfully applied to quality control tests of PET radiopharmaceuticals with ultra-high specific radioactivity.