Automated synthesis of [18F]gefitinib on a modular system

In recent years, [F-18]gefitinib PET has successfully been employed for a number of applications ranging from oncology to in vivo studies of drug transporter proteins. We here report a reliable, automated procedure for routine synthesis of this radiotracer on an Eckert and Ziegler modular system. The 3-step radiosynthesis followed by preparative HPLC-purification provided [F-18]gefitinib in 17.2 +/- 3.3% (n=22) overall decay-corrected radiochemical yield with radiochemical purity > 99% in a total synthesis time of about 2.5 h. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.