Feasibility study of radium-223 production in Tehran Research Reactor for treatment of bone metastases

<p>Bone metastasis is a major clinical concern that can cause severe pain, bone fractures, spinal cord compression, hypercalcemia and other problems for patients. Variuos β emitter radionuclides have been used for bone pain palliation, but recently α emitter radionucliedes also have shown acceptable results of treatment of bone metastasis. Radium-223 (t1/2=11.43 d) is one of the suitable α emitters that emits high energy α particles (Ēav=5.64 MeV) with high linear energy transfer (LET) that delivers a killing dose to the tumor cells. In this research, the feasibility of production of radium-223 from radium-226 was studied in Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) in thermal neutron flux of 4×1013 cm-2 s-1 using MATLAB software. Then, the data were compared with the experimental results. On average, over 80 percent agreement was observed between the calculated and experimental data, and under appropriate conditions the acceptable activity of 227Ac as a precursor of 223Ra was obtained. The results showed that with one month neutron bombardment of 2.5 mg 226Ra in TRR and cooling for 4 months, it is theoretically possible to achieve about 8.51 MBq (0.23 mCi) activity of 223Ra, that with respect to injection of about 3.7 MBq (0.1 mCi) per patient (with normally 70 kg weight), it is possible to administer the produced 223Ra to more than 2 patients in every equilibrium period.</p><p> </p>