Abstract
Rhenium-188 (T-1/2=16.9h) has great potential for a variety of therapeutic applications, including radionuclide synovectomy, oncology and bone pain palliation. The radioactive concentration of Re-188 is dependent upon the specific activity of W-188, which dictates the bed size of the alumina/gel column. Due to the high content of inactive tungsten in neutron irradiated WO3, large columns containing aluminum oxide or gel are needed to prepare to double neutron capture based W-188/Re-188 generators that results in large elution volumes containing relatively high W-188 contents and low concentrations of (ReO4-)-Re-188. This decrease in specific volume of (ReO4-)-Re-188 places a limitation because a high radioactive concentration of (ReO4-)-Re-188 is always needed for filling angioplasty balloons or other therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals like Re-188 -EHDP Re-188 -EDTMP, Re-188 -MAG(3) and Re-188 -DTPA. We report post elution concentration of (ReO4-)-Re-188 using in-house prepared lead cation exchange and alumina columns. Using these columns high bolus volume (10 mL saline) of (ReO4-)-Re-188 can conveniently be concentrated in 1 mL of physiological saline for therapeutic use.