EXPERIENCE ON THE NEUTRON ACTIVATION OF NATURAL/ENRICHED RE, SM AND HO NUCLIDES IN A REACTOR FOR THE PRODUCTION OF RADIOTHERAPEUTIC RADIONUCLIDES

摘要

Because of the importance of β~- emitting radionuclides like ~(186)Re (T_(1/2) 90 hrs.), ~(153)Sm (T_(1/2) 46.8 hrs.) in radiotherapy for palliative treatment of skeletal metastases [1,2] and ~(166)Ho (T_(1/2) 26.7 hrs.) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis [3], a study on the optimization of their production yield has been carried out in 9 MW (swimming pool type) Pakistan Atomic Research Reactor (PARR-1) at a thermal flux of 1×10~(14) neutrons/cm~2.sec. The irradiated samples were counted for absolute measurements in precalibrated multichennel analyzer Canberra series 85 coupled to a Ge-intrinsic detector (MCA). The samples were then measured in ionization chamber CRC-5RH and calibration factor was adjusted to get the same activity.