Opportunities and Prospects for Russia to Create Pet Centers Based on Generator Radionuclides

An assessment of the capabilities of generator radionuclides and a list of generator pairs of radionuclides whose daughter isotope has the potential to be used in medicine for PET research is given. A list of typical 68Ga-based PET radiopharmaceuticals for oncology studied in preclinical and clinical studies is provided. Data on the use of the 82Sr/82Rb generator in clinical diagnostics are presented. The assessment of the existing situation with PET centers in Russia is given. A strategy for the development of a network of clinical PET centers and an overview of the state of generator technologies in Russia are proposed. This article concludes that the use of generators makes it possible to significantly expand the range of clinical institutions capable of providing PET diagnostics and conducting PET studies, having only 1 or several PET scanners in the clinic. It is concluded that due to a serious reduction in capital investments (by 1.5 times) and a noticeable reduction in the cost of operation (by 1.5‒2 times), the use of generator systems will significantly reduce the cost of many PET diagnostic procedures in oncology and cardiology, make this method more accessible to a wide range of the country’s population.