quality control of some radiopharmaceuticals

copper-67 is one of the most useful radionuclide for radioimmunotherapy. its physical half-life (2.58 d) is appropriate for the residence time of a typical antibody on a tumor cells. the high-energy electrons (β- particles ) emitted by 67Cu cause toxic chemical reactions within target tumor cells located with a few millimeters of the radionuclide the chelation of copper-67 with a bifunctional chelator (BFC) such as a cyclic DTPA anhydride may be useful in diagnostic and radiotherapeutic studies using nuclear medicine instrumentations. this work describes the production of carrier-free radioactive copper from natural zinc metal as target material irradiated at ETRR-2 and ETRR-1 research reactors. radioactive copper-64 and 67 were prepared according to the fast neutron reaction 64Zn (n,p) 64Cu and 67Zn (n,p) 67Cu. the zine chloride radiotracer in 8 M HCl acid solution was loaded onto the anion exchanger resin (Dowex 1 x 8, Cl-- ion form, 200-400 mesh, i.d. 0.9 x 10 cm) at flow rate 1 ml/min