Manganese in PET imaging: Opportunities and challenges

Several radionuclides of the transition metal manganese are known and accessible. Three of them, (51)Mn, (52m)Mn, and (52g)Mn, are positron emitters that are potentially interesting for positron emission tomography (PET) applications and, thus, have caught the interest of the radiochemical/radiopharmaceutical and nuclear medicine communities. This mini‐review provides an overview of the production routes and physical properties of these radionuclides. For medical imaging, the focus is on the longer‐living (52g)Mn and its application for the radiolabelling of molecules and other entities exhibiting long biological half‐lives, the imaging of manganese‐dependent biological processes, and the development of bimodal PET/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) probes in combination with paramagnetic (nat)Mn as a contrast agent.