Effect of Strontium and Calcium Impurities on Productivity of 82Sr/82Rb Medical Generator

The 82 Sr/ 82 Rb generator is used to produce a radiopharmaceutical rubidium-82 chloride in saline solution for PET imaging. In this work, we studied the effect of the amount of stable strontium and calcium delivered to the sorbent (on the basis of hydrated tin dioxide) on the maximum volume of radiopharmaceutical solution that can be obtained from the generator. Sr and Ca may be delivered to the sorbent from the initial solution of strontium-82 chloride or from the eluent (0.9% NaCl) during medical application of the generator. It is shown that this volume depends on the value C Sr + 0.11 C Ca , where C Sr and C Ca are molar concentrations of the elements in 1 g of the sorbent. The obtained results make it possible to increase significantly the productivity and reliability of the used generators.