Production of positron-emitting radionuclide yttrium-86 with a computer-aided design target for positron emission tomography.

Yttrium-86 (Y, t = 14.7 h, 33% β) is a nonstandard medical nuclide with a longer half-life than other standard nuclides such as gallium-68 for radiolabelling for PET (positron emission computed tomography) imaging. Y is compatible with DOTA (1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetraacetic acid) and can be used to evaluate DOTA-chelated radiopharmaceuticals with long clearance half-lives, particularly therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals in several days. Y can be produced through Sr(p, n)Y reaction, in which Sr-enriched SrCO powder is bombarded with low-energy protons. To handle the SrCO powder, a powder target for Y production in 14.6 MeV proton cyclotron was designed while maximizing yield, reliability and efficiency. To that end, the target's primary design parameters were traversed, simulated and optimized using computer algorithms to obtain advantageous parameter combinations. In this way, Y was produced on the powder target with high yield and successfully isolated with high purity (>97%) by solid-phase extraction via DGA resin for high-quality PET imaging and drug screening.