The Queen Elisabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK, is using a Lablogic Systems TLC scanner and software to check the purity of Yttrium-90 Zevalin, the cancer therapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Zevalin is prepared from a radiopharmaceutical kit on the day of administration, and the manufacturer specifies that before the dose is administered thin-layer chromatography (TLC) must be used to confirm its radiochemical purity as 95 per cent or more.
Although the Queen Elisabeth's radiopharmacy already had TLC facilities, they were designed - like those of many hospitals - for measuring the more commonly used gamma-emitting radionuclides rather than the pure beta-emitting Yttrium-90 in Zevalin.
The hospital found the beta detection capability it needed in the Mini-scan TLC scanner and Laura radiochromatography data collection and analysis software, both from Lablogic Systems.
Lindsey Halliburton, the hospital's specialist urology radiopharmacist, said: 'Without the Lablogic system we would have had to do more complex dilutions to get accurate counts that would then have to be interpreted via a spreadsheet, adding time to the process while the patient was waiting for the preparation.' Determining purity is especially critical in the case of Zevalin which, at around USD24,000 on average, is currently the world's most expensive single-dose drug.
It justifies its high cost because it is effectively a complete course of lymphoma therapy delivered in just seven to nine days - one visit for imaging, another for a gamma scan, and the third for the dose itself.
