Automatic Synthesis of Tumor Imaging Agent ¹⁸F-fluoroethylcholine

¹⁸F-fluoroethylcholine （¹⁸F-FECH） which reflects the metabolism of choline has been demonstrated to be an promising tumor imaging agent for PET, especially in brain tumor imaging. For utilization in the clinic, this tracer was radiosynthesized automatically with high yields and short synthesis time by using PET-MF-2V-IT-I fluoro-multifunction synthesizer. The two step reactions were processed in the same reaction vessel. The target product was obtained via C18 and CM Sep-pak Plus cartridge with about 30% radiochemical yield (no decay corrected) and more than 99% radiochemical purity within 40 min of total synthesis time, which was stable for 6 h at room temperature. The automatic radiosynthesis procedure have some advantage, such as easy, high yields and short synthesis time and it has potentially utilizable in routine production sites.