The germanium-68/gallium-68 (68Ge/68Ga) generator has high spatial utilization and requires little
maintenance, making it economical and easy to produce. Thus, the frequency of use of 68Ga
radiopharmaceuticals is rapidly increasing worldwide. Therefore, this study attempted to develop an
automated synthesizer for the routine clinical application of 68Ga radiopharmaceuticals. The
automated synthesizer was based on a fixed tubing system and the structure was designed after
adjusting the position of the parts to reflect the synthesis method. Using various components that can
be supplied in Korea, the automated synthesizer was manufactured at a much lower price cost than
that of a commercialized automated synthesizer sold by companies. 68Ga-DOTA-[Tyr3]-octreotide
(
68Ga-DOTATOC) was synthesized to evaluate the performance of the automated synthesizer. 68Ga-DOTATOC could be synthesized with about 65% of non-decay corrected yield, and the
synthesized 68Ga-DOTATOC met all quality control standards. We have synthesized 68Ga-DOTATOC
more than 100 times, and only faced a few problems caused by mechanical errors. In this study, we
successfully developed a simple automated synthesizer for 68Ga radiopharmaceuticals with high
reproducibility. As various 68Ga radiopharmaceuticals have recently been developed, it is expected
that the automated synthesizer developed in this study will be useful for routine clinical use.