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European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
Published in: European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 7/2007

Open Access 01-07-2007 | Editorial

The 68Ge/68Ga generator has high potential, but when can we use 68Ga-labelled tracers in clinical routine?

Authors: Wouter A. P. Breeman, Alfons M. Verbruggen

Published in: European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging | Issue 7/2007

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Excerpt

In this issue of the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, the article by Antunes et al., entitled “Are radiogallium-labelled DOTA-conjugated somatostatin analogues superior to those labelled with other radiometals?”, provides another example of the high potential of the 68Ge/68Ga generator for PET applications in nuclear medicine. The use of 68Ge/68Ga generators in nuclear medicine is very attractive for several reasons:
1.
The 270-day half-life of the parent 68Ge allows use of the generator for a long period, potentially up to 1 year or even longer.
 
2.
The 68-min half-life of 68Ga matches the pharmacokinetics of many peptides and other small molecules owing to rapid diffusion, localisation at the target and fast blood clearance.
 
3.
The PET radionuclide68Ga is continuously available at a reasonable cost from a 68Ge/68Ga generator, including for centres without a cyclotron.
 
4.
Besides the DOTA analogues of somatostatin [1‐5], DOTA-derivatised analogues of several other interesting peptides have been developed, such as bombesin [6‐10], substance P [11, 12], neurotensin [13] and CCK [14‐16]. DOTA is an excellent ligand for binding of gallium; as a consequence, DOTA-peptides can be rapidly and efficiently labelled with 68Ga at high specific activities [10, 17, 18], which implies that the mass of peptide to be administered can be very low [6, 19, 20]. This is of particular interest in the case of peptides with potential pharmacological side-effects, including substance P, bombesin and CCK.
 
…
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29.
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Metadata
Title
The 68Ge/68Ga generator has high potential, but when can we use 68Ga-labelled tracers in clinical routine?
Authors
Wouter A. P. Breeman
Alfons M. Verbruggen
Publication date
01-07-2007
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Published in
European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging / Issue 7/2007
Print ISSN: 1619-7070
Electronic ISSN: 1619-7089
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-007-0387-4

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