Production of radionuclide generators: the Cuban experience

Radionuclide generator systems continue to play a key role in providing both diagnostic and therapeutic radionuclides for various applications in nuclear medicine. The generators represent important in-house production systems that can provide daughter radioisotopes generated by parent decay on-demand without the need for local access to an accelerator or nuclear reactor. Cuba has not had accelerators or reactors for many years, so its radionuclide and radiopharmaceuticals production is based mainly on importation or local generators production. The present work resumes the Cuban experience in the production of radionuclide generators. As it is known, the most widely used generator for clinical applications is the ⁹⁹Mo/^99mTc generator system. In CENTIS facilities, the production of this product began in 2003 using the column chromatography method as a separation technology. More than 4 000 generators have been produced in different presentations (8GBq, 20GBq, 37GBq, 55,5GBq and 74GBq) during these years. A summary of the production process parameters and quality control results of the last five years is reported. Based on the data, it is concluded that a stable production process has been established.