3 ms·
Radiologist/Nuclear Medicine here: This is interesting because it’s another application of Cu64 for PET imaging as opposed to more widely available tracers suc
by riahi 6y ago
Radiologist/Nuclear Medicine here:
This is interesting because it’s another application of Cu64 for PET imaging as opposed to more widely available tracers such as F18 or Ga68. Cu64 has some advantages because it has a comparable positron energy to F18 which leads to good image resolution but a substantially longer half life at 12 hours, which makes logistics of dose delivery and radiopharmaceutical preparation much easier than the 110 minute half life of F18.
Cu64 has recently been approved as the radionuclide pair for neuroendocrine tumor imaging in Cu64-Dotatate so hopefully we see more agents coming online.
- hmmazoids 6y agoI didn't understand that at all but wow that sounds great
- 542458 6y agoELI5 versions: The isotope of copper known as CU64 is used for seeing what is happening inside the body. When CU64 decays back into normal copper, it emits a particle called a positron, which passes through the body and we can detect. By putting CU64 inside the body we can see things like internal organs where the copper accumulates. This is called positron emission tomography, or a PET scan. CU64 is one of many isotopes you can use for this, and is nice because unlike other options it emits a good quantity of particles (resulting in good image quality) and lasts a long time (so we don’t have to worry about it getting to where it needs to be - in the world and in the body - before it decays).