Nuclear data for production of sup(117m)Sn for biomedical application

The sup(117m)Sn(4+)DTPA has been shown to have high uptake in cortical bone with negligible soft-tissue deposition. The long half-life (14 d) of sup(117m)Sn and its emission of abundant short-range Auger and conversion electrons, make sup(117m)Sn(4+)DTPA an attractive therapeutic agent for bone tumors. The necessary nuclear data for production of clinical quantities of sup(117m)Sn using Sb(p,2pxn) reactions at BLIP was obtained. The excitation functions for 121Sb(p,2p3n) and 123Sb(p,2p5n) reactions in the regions of 43 <=Esub(p)<=60 MeV were measured and compared with predicted values obtained from semi-empirical formulae given by Silberberg and Tsao. sup(117m)Sn is routinely produced at ORNL by thermal neutron activation of 116Sn. The possibility has been investigated of improving the specific activity of the reactor-produced sup(117m)Sn by irradiating enriched 116Sn and 117Sn in the core of the HFBR. The results indicate that, due to a strong absorption resonance better specific activity for reactor-produced sup(117m)Sn can be obtained by irradiating natural tin in the core of a reactor. (author)