Semi-Automated Synthesis of [F-18]FBAM, a Thiol Reactive Prosthetic Group, Using Continuous Flow Chemistry

[F-18]FBAM, a thiol reactive bifunctional agent, was successfully synthesized using continuous flow chemistry in a micro reactor that is part of Advion NanoTek Micro-fluidic Synthesizer. As the radiofluorination was carried out microfluidically, a very small amount of precursor was used and over all radiochemical yield was 38% ± 4% (n = 8, decay corrected) and the radiochemical purity was ≥98% with specific activity of 430 mC/μmol. The total reaction time including HPLC purification was 55 min that is 14 min more than manual synthesis and 6 min less than fully automated synthesis.