Abstract
177 Lu is a medium energy beta-emitter commonly used in Nuclear Medicine for radiotherapeutic applications. In this work, the half-life of 177 Lu has been measured using a re-entrant ionisation chamber over a period of 82 days (approximately 12 half-lives). Unlike the majority of previous studies, the material used in this work was produced via the 176 Yb(n,γ)177 Yb reaction followed by the β-decay to 177 Lu, producing insignificant quantities of 177m Lu. This has resulted in the most precise half-life measurement of 177 Lu to date. A half-life of 6.6430 (11) days has been determined. This value is in statistical agreement with the currently recommended half-life of 6.6463 (15) days (z-score = 1.8).
Highlights
Lutetium-177 is commonly used in the radiotherapeutic treatment of neuroendocrine tumours and relapsed nonHodgkin Lymphoma [1, 2]
An aqueous solution of 177Lu n.c.a was received from Isotope Technologies Garching GmbH (ITG) and diluted at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) using an aqueous solution of 0.04 M HCl containing stable lutetium at a concentration of 10 μg g−1
The 2 mL ISO ampoule was assayed at the start of the campaign using a 20% relative efficiency coaxial ntype high purity germanium (HPGe) γ -ray spectrometer to check for the presence of any γ -ray emitting radionuclides in the solution
Summary
Lutetium-177 is commonly used in the radiotherapeutic treatment of neuroendocrine tumours and relapsed nonHodgkin Lymphoma [1, 2]. Lutetium-177 decays by the emission of medium energy β particles with a maximum β energy of 498.3 (8) keV to excited and ground states of the stable 177Hf nucleus [3]. These β particles have a maximum tissue penetration of approximately 1–2 mm [4]. The excited states (life-times < 1 ns) of 177Hf decay via characteristic γ -ray emissions to the ground state, with the most abundant γ rays being from the 9/2+ level (112.9 keV) and 9/2− level (208.4 keV) (see Fig. 1) [3] These γ -ray emissions provide 177Lu with the benefits of both radiotherapeutic treatment and imaging capability [4]. Throughout this article, uncertainties are stated as standard uncertainties or combined standard uncertainties as defined in the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM) [21]
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