Evaluation of production cross-sections for theranostic 67Cu radionuclide via proton-induced nuclear reaction on 68Zn target

• Published in: Applied radiation and isotopes 2021-07, Vol.173, p.109735-109735, Article 109735
• Main Authors: Ali, Samer K.I., Khandaker, Mayeen Uddin, Al-mugren, K.S., Latif, Sk.A., Bradley, D.A., Okhunov, A.A., Sulieman, A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 67Cu; Evaluated data; Nuclear reaction cross-section; Radioimmunotherapy; SOK code; TALYS and EMPIRE codes; β̶-γ emitter
• ISSN: 0969-8043; 1872-9800
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2021.109735

Copper-67 (T1/2 = 61.83 h, Eβ−mean=141 keV, Iβ−total=100%; Eγ = 184.577 keV, Iγ = 48.7%) is a promising radionuclide for theranostic applications especially in radio immunotherapy. However, one of the main drawbacks for its application is related to its limited availability. Various nuclear reaction routes investigated in the last years can result in 67Cu production, although the use of proton beams is the method of choice taken into account in this work. The goal of this work is a revision of the cross-sections aimed at 67Cu yield, which were evaluated for the 68Zn(p,2p)67Cu reaction route up to 80 MeV proton energy. A well-defined statistical procedure, i.e., the Simultaneous Evaluation on KALMAN (SOK), combined with the least-squares concept, was used to obtain the evaluated data together with the covariance matrix. The obtained evaluated data were also compared to predictions provided by the nuclear reaction model codes TALYS and EMPIRE, and a partial agreement among them has been found. These data may be useful for both existing and potential applications in nuclear medicine, to achieve an improvement and validation of the various nuclear reaction models, and may also find applications in other fields (e.g., activation analysis and thin layer activation). •Based on some favorable criteria, the 68Zn(p,2p)67Cu reaction was selected for evaluation.•Data were renormalized based on the latest decay data and monitor reactions.•SOK code combined with least-squares method was applied to the corrected data.•Evaluated data with covariance matrix are generated and reported herein.•A partial agreement are found among the evaluated data, and predictions of model codes TALYS and EMPIRE.