A proof of principle study using radiopharmaceuticals to quantify and localize container-content interactions in medical syringes

Abstract

The sorption of drugs onto their contents is a known phenomenon that is difficult to analyse precisely. The purpose of this study was to present a non-invasive method for locating and quantifying sorption phenomena using radiopharmaceuticals. Radiopharmaceutical are medicines armed with a radionuclide enabling quantification and imaging using dedicated scanners. The sorption of nine different radiopharmaceuticals on 2- and 3-part syringes was investigated. These syringes were filled with the studied radiopharmaceutical solutions and stored immobile for 3 h. At different times ranging from 0 to 180 min, 10 µL were taken from the syringes and the radioactivity of these samples was determined by a gamma counter. 5 radiopharmaceuticals exhibited no significant sorption at any time point in both 2 and 3-parts syringes, but 4 radiopharmaceuticals exhibited sorption losses varying from 20 to 33% after 3 h contact with 3-part-syringes, but no sorption on 2-part syringes at any time point. [^99mTc]Tc-tetrofosmine Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography/Computed Tomography imaging indicated clearly that the interactions were located on the rubber plunger of the 3-part-syringes. The specific nature of radiopharmaceuticals allowed their use as an innovative method to quantify and localize drug sorption phenomena.

Figure 1

Kinetics of the radioactivity measured from the nine radiopharmaceuticals in 2 and 3-part syringes.

Figure 2

SPECT/CT imaging of [^99mTc]Tc-oxidronate and [^99mTc]Tc-Tetrofosmin on 2-part and 3-part syringes. Black and white refer to the CT acquisition. Colors refer to radioactive SPECT signal. The green arrows point to the major sites of sorption (plunger stopper).