Development of the purification process of gallium-68 eluated from Ge-68/Ga-68
generator
Tossaporn Siriprapa1,*, Nopamon Sritongkul1,#, Malulee Tuntawiroon1,#, Nipavan
Poramatikul2,#, Jatupol Sangsuriyan 2,#
1
Radiation Science Program, Division of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj
Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand
2
Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology, Bangkok, Thailand
*e-mail: Tossaporn.sir@mahidol.ac.th #e-mail: sinsu@mahidol.ac.th,
simtt@mahidol.ac.th, pomnipa@yahoo.com, j_sangsuriyan@hotmail.com
Abstract
Introduction: Gallium-68 have a short half-lived of 68 min, 89.14% positron decay,
produced by generator system and have suitable chemical property for labeling
radioligand, make it a promising tracer for PET imaging.
Methods: In this work, development of purification method for Ga-68 eluted from
68Ge/68Ga generator prior to perform radiolabeling had been investigated. Cation and
anion exchange chromatography techniques were used in combination to separate trace
amount of competing metal ions and Ge-68 parent nuclide.The eluant Ga-68 in 5 ml0.6N
HCl was loaded onto AG50W-X8 cation exchange column, wash with
80%Acetone/0.15NHCl, eluted the Ga-68 by 98%Acetone/0.2NHCl mixture.The Ga-68
was then pass through AG1-X8 anion exchange column and purified Ga-68 was recovered
by eluted with small volume of ultra pure water. Metal content, after purification process,
analysed by ICP-AES, were reduced by 61%, 38% and 44% for Fe(II), Zn(II) and Al(III)
respectively ,68Ge breakthrough was in the range of ∼10−3% by MCA spectrometer with
HPGe detector. Labeling efficiency with NOTA-RGD, a tracer for angiogenesis imaging,
gave average yields Ga-68 NOTA-RGD around 50% (not corrected for decay) and 9899% radiochemical purity (by HPLC).
Conclusions: Cation exchange incombination with anion exchange chromatography had
been proven to be an efficient method for purification of Ga-68 eluant from Ge-68/Ga-68
generator prior to radiolabeling of Ga-68 PET radiotracer.
Acknowledgements: The dissertation was financially supported under Research
Fellowship, provided by Siriraj Graduate Scholarship.We are grateful for Radioisotope
Center, Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology to include copyrighted photographs as
part of my thesis. I would like to thank Mr. Jatupol Sangsuriyan and Miss Nipavan
Poramatikul for his valuable and constructive suggestions during the planning and
development of this research work.
Keywords: 68GE/68GA GENERATOR, PURIFICATION, RADIOLAELING, ION
EXCHANGE PURIFICATION, PET