Development and Evaluation of Remotely Operated Synthesizer for (¹⁸F)-Fluorocholine Synthesis

Among the cancer imaging modality that is utilized by Malaysia today is the Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Even though PET studies are usually done with (¹⁸F)-Fluoro-2-dioxyglucose (FDG) as the tracer, (¹⁸F)FDG exhibits several weakness in detecting certain kind of tumours such as brain tumour and prostate metastasis. A new tracer namely (¹⁸F)-fluorocholine (FCH) has been identified as an alternative to (¹⁸F)FD. The absence of specific synthesizer for FCH production hampers the application of this tracer in PET studies at local premises. This study will discuss about the development of the (¹⁸F)FCH synthesizer prototype and its challenges. The design would emphasized on its simplicity, relatively low cost, semi-automated during synthesis and purification, reliable and safe to be use. The (¹⁸F)FCH was synthesized in two step approaches; reacting (¹⁸F)-fluoride with dibromomethane into (¹⁸F)-fluorobromethane before purification using Sep-Pak silica cartridges and finally converted into (¹⁸)FCH by reacting with N,N-dimethylaminoethanol. We have successfully developed the synthesizer and are able to achieve decay-corrected radiochemical yield of 1.45 % in under 100 min. Optimization of the radiochemical yield is still underway. (Author)