PET Clinical Production for Trials 

Radiochemical detection methods are becoming ubiquitous in the imaging of cancer and other pathologies. Countless radiotracers and radioligands have been developed for positron emissin tomography (PET) imaging and are used to target biological processes in the disease pathway. ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is among the most commonly used radiotracers in cancer detection and is produced at our facility.  

For production and research assistants, the routine production of clinical tracers is part of their focus. We produce radiotracers at the Radiochemistry Facility at the Lucas Expansion and in the Nuclear Medicine Clinic at the Stanford Hospital for both human and non-human use in research as well as clinical trials. Our routine clinical tracers are synthesized in custom-made and commercial synthetic modules (i.e. GE TRACERlab modules) housed in lead-shielded cells and are distributed manually or automatically (i.e. Comecer Dorothea) to our imagers. Tracers include ¹⁸F-FDG, ⁶⁸Ga-DOTATATE, ¹⁵O-water, and numerous others.

The radiotracers are used for imaging many pathologies, including neuroendocrine tumors (DOTATATE); pulmonary carcinoid tumors and many small cell lung carcinomas (bombesin); Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease (FDG), among countless others.