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The method for the production of metallic radionuclides has been widely reported, and most of them share a common ion chromatography purification technique. The aim of this work is to design and develop a semi-automated remotely controlled module for the purification of metallic PET radionuclides via cation exchange chromatography.

A dual beam line (BL) self-shielded RDS 111 cyclotron for radionuclide production was installed at the School of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2001. One of the BL’s was upgraded to Eclipse HP (Siemens) in 2008 and the second BL was recently upgraded (June 2011) to the same version with the option for the irradiation of solid targets for the production of metallic radioisotopes.

The aim of this work is to evaluate the characteristics involved in the image reconstruction of the microPET Focus 120. For this evaluation were used two different phantoms; a miniature hot‐rod Derenzo phantom and a National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) NU4‐2008 image quality (IQ) phantom. The best image quality was obtained when using OSEM3D as the reconstruction method reaching a spatial resolution of 1.5 mm with the Derenzo phantom filled with 18F. Image quality test results indicate a superior image quality for the Focus 120 when compared to previous microPET models.