Synthesis of fluorine-18 radio-labeled serum albumins for PET blood pool imaging

This manual method for synthesizing radiolabeled serum albumins uses fluorine-18, a widely available PET radionuclide, and natural protein available in both pure and recombinant forms which could be scaled up for widespread clinical applications. These preclinical biodistribution and PET imaging results indicate that [18F]RSA is an effective blood pool imaging agent in rats and might, as [18F]HSA, prove similarly useful as a clinical imaging agent.