Quality assurance and quality control methods for animal and human applications of no-carrier-added 6-[18F]fluorodopa for PET investigations of dopaminergic systems.

No-Carrier-Added (NCA) 6-[18F]fluoro-L-dopa (6-FDOPA) is being produced routinely for PET investigations of dopaminergic systems at our Institute. We describe here in detail the quality assurance methods involved in its multi-step developmental stage as a radiopharmaceutical. A method to remove toxic copper ions to prepare an injectable solution is described. The stability and shelf-life of NCA 6-FDOPA was also examined and results are discussed. Quality control involved three major aspects: (a) chemical purity, (b) radiochemical purity and (c) enantiomeric excess. A method for quick quality control of individual batch preparations is described.