Cross section measurements for the production of the theranostic radionuclides Cu-67 and Sc-47: Results from COME and PASTA projects

by Gaia Pupillo (LNL)

Tuesday 3 Jul 2018, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Rome

M.B. Ceolin meeting room (INFN-LNL)

This work is developed in the framework of LARAMED project, acronym of LAboratory of RAdionuclides for MEDicine, that exploits the new SPES cyclotron for research activities on radioisotopes in nuclear medicine. 67Cu and 47Sc are of major interest for the LARAMED project, thanks to their great potential in theranostics. This innovative medical approach is based on the use of the same radiopharmaceutical labelled with isotopes emitting radiation useful for both diagnosis and therapy. The use of theranostic radionuclides or theranostic mixture of isotopes of the same chemical element (as 64Cu/67Cu and 44Sc/47Sc) allows the selection of patients with higher chance to respond to specific treatments and the application of individually customized dosimetry. The interest on 67Cu and 47Sc stimulated two specific research projects, both funded by INFN, focused on their production by using proton beams: COME - COpper MEasurement (CSN3 - Dotazioni LNL, 2016) and PASTA - Production with Accelerator of Sc-47 for Theranostic Applications (CSN5 - Grant Giovani, 2017-2018).  Nuclear cross section measurements were performed at ARRONAX facility (Nantes, France) by using stacked-foils targets and, when needed, applying a radiochemical procedure for the separation of the radionuclide of interest from the irradiated material (in collaboration with the University of Ferrara). Methods and results from the COME and PASTA projects will be given in this presentation.