Half-life measurement of 44Sc and 44mSc

Comparison of the dosimetry of scandium-43 and scandium-44 patient organ doses in relation to commonly used gallium-68 for imaging neuroendocrine tumours

“…More specifically, this work investigates the dosimetry of DOTATATE labelled with variable radionuclides in view of their clinical application. In previous work, scandium-43 and scandium-44 were described as favourable radioisotopes for peptide-based PET imaging due to their physical characteristics [ 9 , 11 ]. We also reported previously that the EGSnrc and MCNP6.1 MC codes have good agreement among the results when used for dosimetric purposes [ 21 ].…”

“…For current practices, these levels of variation in the absorbed dose are likely to be within dosimetry uncertainties of molecular radiotherapy dosimetry [ 33 ] and should not impact on the choice of radioisotope used. The choice will be made based on availability of the radionuclide and PET device technology, as some devices will not be able to quantitatively overcome the presence of the high gamma emission of scandium-44 and, thus, favour the use of scadium-43 [ 8 , 9 , 11 ]. Additionally, the use of a mixture of scandium-43/scandium-44 can overcome the cost associated with scandium-43 production by the use of same target material as for the production of scandium-44 irradiated at higher proton energies and benefit from additional information from the scandium-44 emissions for possible multi-isotope PET imaging [34].…”

“…Our prior research [ 11 ] demonstrated that, in terms of instrumentation, current clinical positron emission tomography (PET) exhibited comparable performance using scandium-44 or a mixture of scandium-43/scandium-44 with ones achieved with fluorine-18 or gallium-68 PET. The practical drawback of scandium-43 is associated with its high costs for production, which rise considerably when high purity is required [ 8 , 12 , 13 ].…”