Assessment of ethanol and acetonitrile in 18F-FDG preparations by means of liquid chromatography

Introduction Acetonitrile (ACN) and ethanol (EtOH) are common solvents used in radiopharmaceutical production. In accordance to official compendia, the concentration of these solvents should be assessed by gas chromatography. In the present paper, an optimized method, based on Koziorowski (2010), is validated. Methods ACN and EtOH concentrations and retention times (Rt) were obtained by a HPLC system equipped with a refractive index detector (RID), an ion exclusion column and ultrapure water as mobile phase. The methodology was validated following the ICH Q2(R1) requirements. Results The solvents EtOH and ACN were eluted at 23.22 and 26.32 minutes, respectively, with a final run time of 30 minutes. The validation parameters (accuracy, precision, linearity, specificity, robustness, detection and quantification limits) were obtained. Conclusions A reproducible HPLC method for the quantification of residual solvents in preparations of 2-deoxy-2-fluorine-18]fluoro-D-glucose (¹⁸F-FDG) was described and validated. The method was precise, accurate, selective, robust and linear over a wide range. In addition, this method showed a high sensitivity, with limits of detection and quantitation comparable to the usual methods by gas chromatography.