New approach for the synthesis of [18F]fluoroethyltyrosine for cancer imaging: Simple, fast, and high yielding automated synthesis Original Research Article

O-(2-[18F]fluoroethyl)-l-tyrosine ([18F]FET) is one of the first 18F-labeled amino acids for imaging amino acid metabolism in tumors. This tracer overcomes the disadvantages of [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose, [18F]FDG, and [11C]methionine, [11C]MET. Nevertheless, the various synthetic methods providing 18F[FET] exhibit a big disadvantage concerning the necessity of two purification steps during the synthesis including HPLC purification, which causes difficulties in the automation, moderate yields, and long synthesis times >60 min.