66Ga is a positron emitter with half-life of T1/2=9.49 hour. It can be produced using
cyclotron by charged particle induced reaction on different natural and enriched stable
isotopes. 66Ga, being a positron emitter with intermediate half-life is a strong candidate
for Positron emission tomography (PET). It is also used in SPECT and apart from this it
can be used in theranostic pairs for theragnostic studies. With the increasing significance
of 66Ga in nuclear medicine it is necessary to evaluate and validate the nuclear reaction
cross section data to suggest its best possible production route. For this purpose the
experimental data was collected from EXFOR and reliability of the data was checked
with nuclear model calculations; such as ALICE-IPPE, TAYLS and EMPIRE.
Normalization of the experimental reported data was performed according to the latest
standards of decay data and monitor reactions. The production routes; 63Cu(He3,n)66Ga,
63
Cu(a,n)66Ga, 65Cu(a,3n)66Ga, natCu(a,x)66Ga, 66Zn(d,2n)66Ga, 67Zn(p,2n)66Ga,
68Zn(p,3n)66Ga, 66Zn(p,n)66Ga and natZn(p,x)66Ga were evaluated and analyzed to suggest
the best possible production route for high purity production of 66Ga. Out of the evaluated
nuclear reactions for the production of 66Ga; The 66Zn(p,n)66Ga reaction was found to be
the best production route. So 66Zn (p,n)66Ga reaction was suggested as best; because of
the possibility of its production using low energy cyclotrons.
Key Words: 66Ga, PET, SPECT, Nuclear models, Data Fitting