Bromine-74, bromine-75, bromine-76, and bromine-77 are all radionuclides that have been suggested as useful in nuclear medicine. The reactions to produce these nuclides are discussed and methods of labeling compound evaluated. These methods include chemical, enzymatic and recoil labeling techniques.There are several radionuclides of bromine that have been used or have been suggested for use in biomedical studies; these nuclides include bromine-74, bromine-75, bromine-76, and bromine-77. Although bromine radionuclides have been used for the measurement of extracellular fluid volume [1], it is only in recent years that bromine radionuclides have been attached to complex molecules [2]. Over the past eight years many molecules, including proteins, steroids, fatty acids, and neuroleptics, have been labeled with bromine-75 or bromine-77. Bromine-75 has a 95.5 minute half-life and decays 75.5% by positron emission and thus can be used in conjunction with positron emission tomography; bromine-77 has a 57 hour halflife and decays with the emission of gamma rays of 242, 300, 520, and 580 keV. In spite of the complex decay scheme of bromine-77, phantom studies have shown that reasonable resolution can be achieved using a scintillation camera fitted with a high energy pinhole collimator [3].
Production of bromine radionuclidesThe bromine radionuclides of medical interest can be produced by either direct or indirect methods. The indirect method of production involves the initial preparation and separation of the corresponding krypton precursor nuclide. Indirect methods of production have the advantages of (1) producing a radiochemically pure product; and (2) providing the opportunity to carry out excitation labeling (vide infra).Bromine-75 can be produced directly by the 76 Se(p,2n) 7S Br, 76 Se(d,3n) 75 Br, 75 As( 3 He,3n) 7S Br, 75 As(a,4n) 7s Br or 78 Kr(p,a) 7S Br nuclear reactions. PAANS et al. [4] have investigated the first four reactions and have shown that 7S Br of 98.6% radiochemical purity can be obtained at a rate of 118 mCi^amp hour with the 76 Se (ρ, 2n) 75 Br reaction using selenium-76 enriched to 92.4% and with the protons being degraded from 28 to 22 MeV in the target. BLESSING et al. [5] have investigated the 75 As( 3 He, 3n) 75 Br reaction in detail and use a Cu 3 As alloy as the target material. This target, which contains -30% arsenic, can withstand very high cyclotron beam currents and the radiobromine can be isolated by dry distillation; 7S Br yields up to 90 mCi have been obtained with a two hour irradiation. FRIEDMAN [6] has used the 78 Kr(p,a) 7S Br reaction to produce high purity bromine-75. The enriched krypton is irradiated in a target fitted with a removable krypton reservoir [7]; after bombardment the krypton is removed from the chamber by freezing and the bromine-75 is removed by washing the chamber.The indirect production of bromine-75 using the 79,81 Br(d,xn) 75 Kr ->• 75 Br reaction has been investigated using deuteron energies of 90 MeV [8]. Since the levels of impurities are similar to th...