Radiochemical and analytical aspects of inter-institutional quality control measurements on radiopharmaceuticals

BACKGROUND: Clinically applied radiopharmaceuticals have to meet quality release criteria like a high radiochemical yield and radiochemical purity. Many radiopharmaceuticals do not have marketing authorization and have no dedicated monograph within the European pharmacopeia, therefore general monographs on quality control have to be applied for clinical applications. These criteria require standardization and validation in labeling and preparation, including QC measurements according to well-defined standard operation procedures. QC measurements however, are often based on detection techniques specific for a certain LC-system. Multi-institutional research and development of new radiopharmaceuticals lead to an increase in multicenter trials. Although all institutes’ radiopharmacies are using the same standardized labeling and operation procedures, they often use different LC and radiodetection systems. Here we present a comparison of QC assessments for 3 radiopharmaceuticals with focus on the interpretation of chromatograms, data-output and potential differences in local practical performances of QC on (U)HPLC. METHODS: QC assessments for [(111)In]In-CCK, [(68)Ga]Ga-Bombesin and [(177)Lu]Lu-PSMA analogs were compared. Two of the radiopharmaceutical QC assessments were also applied in other institutes using their own HPLC-systems and concordant software. Data from the HPLC-injections and measurements is processed and summarized in chromatograms, based on a variety of smoothing algorithms for which different software programs are applied. Described radiopeptides were labeled and analyzed according their standardized labeling and operation procedures. RESULTS: Integration of main peaks on chromatograms resulted in a range of RCP, depending on the smoothing algorithm used. [(111)In]In-CCK(A), (68)Ga-Bombesin(B) and [(177)Lu]Lu-PSMA(C) analogs had a RCP range of 88%–96%(A), 89–95%(B) and 92–99%(C) respectively. Important factors affecting final RCP value were site specific background radiation-levels, intrinsic system properties such as noise and sensitivity, personal interpretation e.g. peak-tailing and smoothing algorithms. CONCLUSION: Measurement of RCP shows a strong method- and system-dependency, even when parameters are validated, standardized and SOP are followed. Release criteria are frequently based on RCP data from one central location. The lack of inter inter institutional validation and standardization in RCP determination makes the results therefore rather arbitrary. For multicenter trials, we recommend to compare locally determined RCP under validated and standardized conditions of in-line activity detection between institutes for each radiopharmaceutical.