Radionuclides production by proton and deuteron beams irradiation

Theranostic medicine is a new integrated therapheutic system which can diagnose, deliver targeted therapy and monitor the response to therapy. This multifunctional platform is an emerging highlight in medicine that combines both diagnostic/imaging and therapeutic aspects: the nuclear physician can follow the real biodistribution of the radiopharmaceutical inside the patient after the injection and the follow-up during the repeated treatments. The radioisotopes used for metabolic radiotherapy are α, β and Auger electron emitters. Many of them are also γ emitters and can be detected by gamma-camera, SPECT or PET. Many of these “neutron reach” radionuclides are produced by nuclear reactor with a very low specific activity - AS. In selected cases they can be produced by bombardment of targets by charged particle beams, in No Carrier Added Form – NCA - with very high AS. If the irradiations are made with deuteron beams some more advantages are obtained: 1) the higher stopping power in respect to the protons allows to employ targets with smaller thickness: the volume of reagents, the synthesis systems and the discharge of radioactive material for radioprotection purpose are smaller, the AS and chemical purity of the final product are higher. 2) deuterons usually present higher cross sections in compound nucleus region. We present some results obtained at our Laboratory for the production optimization of some theragnostic radionuclides.