Speaker
Dr
Juan Esposito
(INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Italy)
Description
Technetium 99 metastable is the most important and widely used radionuclide in nuclear medicine for over 80% of all diagnostic procedures. Recent shortage of this isotope prompted the international scientific community to ask for investigations on new possible production routes. As possible alternatives to the current reactor-based 235U(n,f)99Mo→99mTc scheme, accelerator-based methods have been considered. In this work, a feasibility study for the production of 99mTc from irradiation with protons on natural and highly enriched molybdenum targets has been performed. In the framework of INFN LARAMED (LAboratory of RAdionuclide for MEDicine) project currently under way at Legnaro labs, theoretical simulations of excitation functions and yields have, in particular been studied for natMo(p,X)and 100Mo(p,X) reactions in the 5-35 MeV proton energy range. In addition, a review of all existing experimental data has been collected and compared with the simulations. Theoretical calculations were carried out using the new EMPIRE 3.1 (Rivoli Release) nuclear code, a modular system of nuclear models whose new features permit to evaluate the population probability of isomer states. Preliminary results of simulations have shown good agreement with experimental data. Estimation for the production of other radioactive and stable nuclides together with 99mTc has been calculated and considered an important discriminator for the feasibility of the production route since the presence of other harmful nuclides in the final product could affect the diagnostic outcome and radiation dosimetry in human studies.
Primary authors
Mrs
Giulia Vecchi
(INFN-LNL and Ferrara University)
Dr
Juan Esposito
(INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Italy)
Dr
Simone Manenti
(Physic Dept. - University of Ferrara and LASA - University of Milan and INFN-Milan)
