Abstract:
The clinical skeletal imaging performed by injection of
99Tc
m-MDP, has to wait for 2~3 h so as to reduce the background radiation, the low radiochemical purity of
99Tc
m-MDP may be the major cause so that its radiochemical purity was assessed by socalled “onestrip method” in 2002, i.e. ascending thinlayer chromatography with one silica gel strip as the stationary phase and
V(10% ammonium)∶
V(acetate-methanol)=1∶1 as the mobile phase. After developing and drying this strip was tested by autoradiography. In 2008
99Tc
m-MDP and the other five
99Tc
m radiopharmaceuticals as
99Tc
mO
4-,
99Tc
m-EC,
99Tc
m-DTPA,
99Tc
m-MIBI and
99Tc
m-MAA were assessed by these methods as mentioned above, but the only difference was the self-developing film instead of traditional X-ray film. The autoradiogram of
99Tc
m-MDP was observed by naked eye and the results showed that the radiochemical purity of
99Tc
m-MDP was higher than that in 2002, and the R
f values of 0.7 was assessed. Using these methods assessed
99Tc
m-DTPA,
99Tc
m-MIBI and
99Tc
m-MDP in 2009 respectively, the autoradiogram of former two drugs was as same as that in 2008, and the R
f average value was 0.78±0.02 and 0.39±0.03 separately. The R
f values of two
99Tc
m-MDP samples were all closed to zero, which were rather different from those in 2008. It might be that
99Tc
m-MDP was a composite compound of characteristics of
99Tc
m-Sn colloid, in the storing effective time for 52 weeks, since the decrease of contents of stannous chloride in the box caused the significant change of R
f value, which could not be measured by two-strip method (one strip for free pertechtate, one strip for
99Tc
m-Sn colloid). It is suggested that the drug manufacturers should continue to study to find out the optimum TLC for testing the radiochemical purity of
99Tc
m radiopharmaceuticals, after the components are separated completely, calculate the radiochemical purity or
99Tc
m labeling efficiency by using these peak areas of the radioactive curve. The normalization of
99Tc
mradiopharmaceuticals measuring method might be helpful for the further developing radiopharmacy.