Advances in the production, processing and microPET image quality of technetium-94m

This work involves the production, processing and imaging of the short-lived, rarely used positron emission tomography (PET) radionuclide technetium-94m (94mTc). Our procedures are an extension of methods reported in the literature and are detailed within. A key modification was the development of a single step that combines purification and concentration of an aqueous 94mTc-pertechnetate solution, which both reduces processing time and increases the final concentration of the solution. Additionally, a convenient method for the direct recovery of 94mTc into an organic solvent was developed, eliminating the solvent transfer step needed for organic syntheses using 94mTc. Each of these advances potentially extends the scope of syntheses possible with this short-lived radionuclide. To explore the imaging potential of 94mTc, we carried out phantom imaging studies on small-scale high-resolution PET scanners to estimate the limitations of detection associated with 94mTc and PET. Preliminary studies demonstrate that useful images can be obtained with modern image reconstruction algorithms when using a correction for the cascade gamma ray contamination.