Abstract
As 99m Tc-phosphonates are well established tracers for the diagnoses of bone metastases using SPECT, analogue attempts for PET using the Germanium-68/Gallium-68 generator based 68Ga tracers would be potentially useful. Therefore molecules / ligands containing phosphonate structures with binding affinities to hydroxyapatite and being adequate complexing agents for trivalent Gallium could be considered as interesting targeting vectors for the synthesis of generator-based PET-tracers for skeletal imaging.
The aim of the study was to synthesize complexes with different types of phosphonate ligands in order to understand the rational of 68Ga-phosphonates related to apatite binding.