Compelling Case for Fostering Titanium-45 for Positron Emission Tomography Tracer Applications

The growth of diagnostic nuclear medicine is substantially based on the development, availability, and regular clinical use of cyclotron-based positron emission tomography (PET) tracers. Apart from (18)F (110 min) products, the radiometal (68)Ga isotope (68 min) has found an increasingly wide clinical acceptance. There is hence much merit in identifying and fostering other radiometal positron emitters, of preferably longer half-life. Titanium-45 (3.08 h) fits the bill well in this context, as it is easy to produce using natural scandium metal target and Ep of 13–14 MeV for (45)Sc(p, n) (45)Ti reaction. This Commentary cites a compelling case to foster the development of (45)Ti products for PET imaging.