Investigation on the production and isolation of 149Tb for targeted therapy

The short lived α-emitting radionuclides have enormous potential in the targeted radio immuno therapy, especially when localization of dose in the affected cells becomes important. 149Tb, owing to its moderate half-life (T1/2=4.118 h) and high α-particle energy (3.97 MeV), is among the few promising α-emitting radionuclides which are presently projected for human clinical use. Moreover, the tri-valent metallic radionuclide, 149Tb offers stable labelling in conjugation with chelating ligands, macromolecules or peptides. However, till date, only few attempts have been made for production and separation of no-carrier-added (nca) 149Tb. An effort was made to produce nca 149Tb by bombarding 71.5 MeV 12C projectile on natural praseodymium metal foil of 14.5 mg/cm2 thickness at the BARC-TIFR Pelletron accelerator facility, Mumbai, India. The γ-spectrometric measurements showed the production of 150,149Tb in the target matrix and the batch yield of 77.5 and 54 kBq/μA.h were achieved for 149Tb and 150Tb respectively