In vivo biodistribution of no-carrier-added 6-18F-fluoro-3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine (18F-DOPA), produced by a new nucleophilic substitution approach, compared with carrier-added 18F-DOPA, prepared by conventional electrophilic substitution.

A novel synthetic approach to 6-(18)F-fluoro-3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine ((18)F-DOPA), involving the nucleophilic substitution of a diaryliodonium salt precursor with non-carrier-added (18)F-fluoride, yielded a product with a specific activity that was 3 orders of magnitude higher than the product of the conventional synthesis method, involving an electrophilic substitution of a trialkylstannane precursor with (18)F2. We performed a direct comparison of high- and low-specific-activity (18)F-DOPA in a neuroendocrine tumor model to determine whether this difference in specific activity has implications for the biologic behavior and imaging properties of (18)F-DOPA. (18)F-DOPA was produced via the novel synthesis method, yielding (18)F-DOPA-H with a high specific activity (35,050 ± 4,000 GBq/mmol). This product was compared in several experiments with conventional (18)F-DOPA-L with a low specific activity (11 ± 2 GBq/mmol). In vitro accumulation experiments with the human pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor cell line BON-1 were performed at both 0 °C and 37 °C and at 37 °C in the presence of pharmacologic inhibitors of proteins involved in the uptake mechanism of (18)F-DOPA. Small-animal PET experiments were performed in athymic nude mice bearing a BON-1 tumor xenograft. At 37 °C, the uptake of both (18)F-DOPA-H and (18)F-DOPA-L did not differ significantly during a 60-min accumulation experiment in BON-1 cells. At 0 °C, the uptake of (18)F-DOPA-L was significantly decreased, whereas the lower temperature did not alter the uptake of (18)F-DOPA-H. The pharmacologic inhibitors carbidopa and tetrabenazine also revealed differential effects between the 2 types of (18)F-DOPA in the 60-min accumulation experiment. The small-animal PET experiments did not show any significant differences in distribution and metabolism of (18)F-DOPA-H and (18)F-DOPA-L in carbidopa-pretreated mice. The advantages of the novel synthesis of (18)F-DOPA, which relies on nucleophilic fluorination of a diaryliodonium salt precursor, lie in the simplicity of the synthesis method, compared with the conventional, electrophilic approach and in the reduced mass of administered, pharmacologically active (19)F-DOPA. (18)F-DOPA-H demonstrated comparable imaging properties in an in vivo model for neuroendocrine tumors, despite the fact that the injected mass of material was 3 orders of magnitude less than (18)F-DOPA-L.