Compelling Case for Fostering Titanium-45 for Positron Emission Tomography Tracer Applications

The growth of diagnostic nuclear medicine is substantially based on the development, availability, and regular clinical use of cyclotron-based positron emission tomography (PET) tracers. Apart from ¹⁸F (110 min) products, the radiometal ⁶⁸Ga isotope (68 min) has found an increasingly wide clinical acceptance. There is hence much merit in identifying and fostering other radiometal positron emitters, of preferably longer half-life. Titanium-45 (3.08 h) fits the bill well in this context, as it is easy to produce using natural scandium metal target and Ep of 13-14 MeV for ⁴⁵Sc(p, n) ⁴⁵Ti reaction. This Commentary cites a compelling case to foster the development of ⁴⁵Ti products for PET imaging.