An adapted purification procedure to improve the quality of ⁹⁰Y for clinical use

Abstract

Abstract There is an increasing interest for 90 Y for radionuclide therapy. However, radioimmunotherapy, one of the most important applications for 90 Y, demands a very high purity product. Obtaining a high quality 90 Y is difficult not only because of the complex and time consuming production schemes but also because of the quality control which has challenging tasks like the determination of 90 Sr at very low concentrations. The present paper investigates a reported purification procedure for the removal of stable metal trace contaminants from an 90 Y solution, seeking for its potential use in the elimination of the radioactive contaminant 90 Sr and its fast determination. For this purpose a washing step with HNO 3 acid is introduced to elute 90 Sr, the order of each acid solution is rearranged to reduce the potential contaminants present in acids and the size of the column is reduced to further optimize the procedure. As a result, an improved purification method is obtained, which allows the removal of both trace metal contaminants and 90 Sr from an 90 Y solution and the measurement of 90 Sr/ 90 Y ratios of the order of 10 -7 , which are well below the established pharmacopeia limit of 2×10 -5 .