Accelerator-Based Production of Scandium Radioisotopes for Applications in Prostate Cancer: Toward Building a Pipeline for Rapid Development of Novel Theranostics.

In the field of nuclear medicine, the β -emitting Sc and β -emitting Sc are promising candidates in cancer diagnosis and targeted radionuclide therapy (TRT) due to their favorable decay schema and shared pharmacokinetics as a true theranostic pair. Additionally, scandium is a group-3 transition metal (like Lu) and exhibits affinity for DOTA-based chelators, which have been studied in depth, making the barrier to implementation lower for Sc than for other proposed true theranostics. Before Sc can see widespread pre-clinical evaluation, however, an accessible production methodology must be established and each isotope's radiolabeling and animal imaging capabilities studied with a widely utilized tracer.

Photonuclear production of Ca for Ca/Sc generator from natural CaCO targets.

This work investigated the indirect production of Sc from natural Ca targets via Ca(γ,n)Ca→Sc + β + ν‾ with incident electron energies of 30, 35, and 40 MeV. The Ca production yields were simulated using the PHITS Monte Carlo simulation code and compared to experimental data. The simulated production rates for all three irradiations are in good agreement with experimental data within uncertainties.

Imaging and dosimetric characteristics of Cu.

In recent years the use of beta-emitting radiopharmaceuticals for cancer therapy has expanded rapidly following development of therapeutics for neuroendocrine tumors, prostate cancer, and other oncologic malignancies. One emerging beta-emitting radioisotope of interest for therapy is Cu (t: 2.6 d) due to its chemical equivalency with the widely-established positron-emitting isotope Cu (t: 12.

Accelerator Production of Scandium Radioisotopes: Sc-43, Sc-44, and Sc-47.

Scandium radioisotopes are increasingly considered viable radiolabels for targeted molecular imaging (Sc-43, Sc-44) and therapy (Sc-47). Significant technological advances have increased the quantity and quality of available radioscandium in the past decade, motivated in part by the chemical similarity of scandium to therapeutic radionuclides like Lu-177. The production and radiochemical isolation techniques applied to scandium radioisotopes are reviewed, focusing on charged particle and electron linac initiated reactions and using calcium and titanium as starting materials.

Electron linear accelerator production and purification of scandium-47 from titanium dioxide targets.

The photonuclear production of no-carrier-added (NCA) Sc from solid TiO and the subsequent chemical processing and purification have been developed. Scandium-47 was produced by the Ti(γ,p)Sc reaction with Bremsstrahlung photons produced from the braking of electrons in a high-Z (W or Ta) convertor. Production yields were simulated with the PHITS code (Particle and Heavy Ion Transport-code System) and compared to experimental results.

Heavy ion linear accelerator for radiation damage studies of materials.

A new eXtreme MATerial (XMAT) research facility is being proposed at Argonne National Laboratory to enable rapid in situ mesoscale bulk analysis of ion radiation damage in advanced materials and nuclear fuels. This facility combines a new heavy-ion accelerator with the existing high-energy X-ray analysis capability of the Argonne Advanced Photon Source. The heavy-ion accelerator and target complex will enable experimenters to emulate the environment of a nuclear reactor making possible the study of fission fragment damage in materials.