Production of Therapeutic Radionuclides

While neutron capture and charged‐particle reactions are used to produce the majority of therapeutic radionuclides, photonuclear reactions using electron linear accelerators are actively being investigated as a potential new route to produce and supply previously inaccessible or hard‐to‐obtain radionuclides. This chapter covers these different production pathways and highlights commonly used isotopes produced through these routes. For nuclear reactions important to the production of radionuclides, a particle incident on a stationary target giving rise to a radioactive product and a light particle or gamma ray is considered. Nuclear reactors use fissile material to generate neutrons. These neutrons can also be used to produce radionuclides in targets via two general mechanisms: by direct neutron reactions such as neutron capture, or reactions; or by inducing additional fission events in targets composed of fissile material.