Small-scale production of 67 Cu for a preclinical study via the 64 Ni(α, p) 67 Cu channel.

INTRODUCTION: Copper-67 is an attractive beta emitter for targeted radionuclide therapy. However, the availability of 67 Cu limits its potential use in a wide range of applications. In this study, we propose an easy small-scale production of 67 Cu using 64 Ni target for a preclinical study.

METHODS: 67 Cu was produced from an electrodeposited 64 Ni target via the 64 Ni(α, p)67 Cu-reaction with a 36 MeV alpha beam at 15 eμA (electrical microampere) conducted for 7 h. The chemical separation process of 67 Cu from the 64 Ni target was performed following by our routine procedure of 64 Cu production using cation exchange resin, AG50W-X8, with minor modification. The target and its holder were redesigned in the preparation.

RESULTS: The 67 Cu product was obtained with a yield of 55 ± 10 MBq at the end of bombardment (EOB), and the yield was 527 ± 96 kBq/μAh at the EOB. The copper impurity in the product was low (0.71 ± 0.21 μg) and the product was suitable for a preclinical study.

CONCLUSIONS: We produced 67 Cu with sufficient activity and quality for a preclinical study using a 64 Ni-target. This production method also showed advantages as a routine method, i.e., shorten the processing time, reducing the radiation exposure and ready target recycling, when compared with that of a conventional Zn-target used for 67 Cu production.