An adapted purification procedure to improve the quality of 90Y for clinical use

Abstract There is an increasing interest for 90Y for radionuclide therapy. However, radioimmunotherapy, one of the most important applications for 90Y, demands a very high purity product. Obtaining a high quality 90Y is difficult not only because of the complex and time consuming production schemes but also because of the quality control which has challenging tasks like the determination of 90Sr at very low concentrations. The present paper investigates a reported purification procedure for the removal of stable metal trace contaminants from an 90Y solution, seeking for its potential use in the elimination of the radioactive contaminant 90Sr and its fast determination. For this purpose a washing step with HNO3 acid is introduced to elute 90Sr, the order of each acid solution is rearranged to reduce the potential contaminants present in acids and the size of the column is reduced to further optimize the procedure. As a result, an improved purification method is obtained, which allows the removal of both trace metal contaminants and 90Sr from an 90Y solution and the measurement of 90Sr/90Y ratios of the order of 10-7, which are well below the established pharmacopeia limit of 2×10-5.