PET radiopharmacy and automation

Automation is of paramount importance while handling radioactivity, basically for radiation protection reasons, but also to speed up procedures and improve reliability. This is especially true for the preparation of PET radiopharmaceuticals, which involve high level of starting activity and have short half-lives. From the early attempts with mechanical articulated manipulators or tele-pliers, to the modern fully automated systems giant steps have been made. Automation covers any aspect of a nuclear medicine operability, from radionuclide delivery to radiosynthesis, formulation and dose dispensing. Radionuclide transport, in liquid and gaseous form, is easy to automate, while it may be troublesome in solid form. Multi-step radiosynthetic processes can now be performed with automatic synthesis modules, using disposable or non-disposable networks of tubing/valves/vials, the former being preferred for routine preparations of clinically relevant radiopharmaceuticals, and the latter for the development of new radiolabeling methods or in case of gaseous phase chemistry. Automated dispensing systems are used to distribute the whole activity in different vials or to prepare syringes containing patient doses and are of great help in reducing radiation hazard to the personnel. Recently, also automated system capable to directly administrate the radiopharmaceuticals in patients have been developed. In parallel with their growing importance, recent advancements are broadening automation to therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, whose preparation has largely been performed manually, to date. Although far from being considered “mature” for routine preparations, continuous findings in material sciences and sensor/electronic technology are providing “food” for further improve efficiency of radiolabeling reaction and reduce the size of automated systems, which might also have a potential economic impact. Good examples are microfluidic and automation of quality control operations.