Radio-UHPLC: A tool for rapidly determining the radiochemical purity of technetium-99m radiopharmaceuticals?

• Radiochemical purity of 3 technetium-99m radiopharmaceuticals was evaluated using radio-UHPLC.
• Results obtained were in agreement with those obtained using the standard method.
• Analysis time was less than 3 min using radio-UHPLC.
• Radio-UHPLC could be proposed as an alternative technique for radiochemical purity determination.

Determining the radiochemical purity (RCP) of technetium-99m (99mTc) radiopharmaceuticals using the method described in the package insert is a time-consuming process, requiring particular attention in order to achieve accurate RCP results. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether radio-ultra high performance liquid chromatography (radio-UHPLC) may be an alternative method for RCP testing of 99mTc-tetrofosmin, 99mTc-MAG3 and 99mTc-sestamibi. Results obtained using radio-UHPLC were in excellent agreement with the standard method, with total analysis time being reduced to less than 3 min.