Radioisotope requirements and usage in the radiopharmaceutical industry
- Amersham Healthcare, Arlington Heights, IL (United States)
Radioisotopes are used extensively in many different productive and beneficial human endeavors. Amersham International, a U.K.-based company originating in the British Scientific Civil Service during World War II, has been actively involved in many of these activities for more than 50 yr. Today they are one of the world`s largest suppliers of radioactive compounds and scaled radiation sources for use in industrial quality and safety assurance, life science research, and medicine. This paper outlines one of these applications: the use of radioisotopes as radiopharmaceuticals. Radiopharmaceuticals are radioactive nuclides and labeled compounds that have been developed for the diagnosis and treatment of (human) disease. They are manufactured via highly controlled processes and have gone through regulatory scrutiny and approval far in excess of other radioisotopes used in other applications. Radiopharmaceuticals can be conveniently split into two categories. One type is simply an active analog that mimics the physiological behavior of its inactive counterpart in the body. The other involves an actual pharmacological compound that exhibits the desired physiological behavior, which is then labeled with a radionuclide suitable for either imaging or the delivery of a therapeutic radiation dose as appropriate but which plays no part in the mechanism of action of the drug. The latter type, which is the more common of the two, can be supplied either as an active compounded product or as a {open_quotes}cold kit,{close_quotes} which is then labeled with the appropriate radiopharmaceutical-grade radionuclide to yield the final product.
- OSTI ID:
- 186529
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-950601-; ISSN 0003-018X; TRN: 96:006961
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Vol. 72; Conference: Annual meeting of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), Philadelphia, PA (United States), 25-29 Jun 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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