Development of samarium-doped phosphate glass microspheres for internal radiotheranostic applications

Arjuna, Andi; Milborne, Ben; Putra, Amal Rezka; Mulyaningsih, Theresia Rina; Setiawan, Herlan; Islam, Md Towhidul; Felfel, Reda; Ahmed, Ifty

Abstract

Internal radiotherapy delivers radioactive sources inside the body, near to or into malignant tumours, which may be particularly effective when malignancies are not responding to external beam radiotherapy. A pure beta emitter, 90Y, is currently used for internal radiotherapy. However, theranostic radionuclide-doped microspheres can be developed by incorporating 153Sm, which emits therapeutic beta and diagnostic gamma energies. This study investigated the production of high concentrations of samarium-content doped phosphate-based glass microspheres. The glass P60 (i.e. 60P2O5-25CaO-15Na2O) was mixed with Sm2O3 at ratios of 75:25 (G75:Sm25), 50:50 (G50:Sm50) and 25:75 (G25:Sm75) and processed via flame spheroidisation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) confirmed the microsphere uniformity with significantly high samarium content up to 44 % in G25:Sm75. Via X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, samarium-doped microspheres appeared to be glass–ceramic in nature. Mass-loss, size and pH changes were performed over 28 days, revealing a significant increase in samarium microsphere stability. After 15 min of neutron activation (neutron flux 3.01 × 1013 n.cm−2.s−1), the specific activity of the microspheres (G75:Sm25, G50:Sm50 and G25:Sm75) was 0.28, 0.54 and 0.58 GBq.g−1, respectively. Therefore, the samarium microspheres produced in this study provide great potential for improving internal radiotherapy treatment for liver cancer by avoiding complex procedures and using less microspheres with shorter irradiation time.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 16, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Feb 17, 2024
• Publication Date: Mar 25, 2024
• Deposit Date: Feb 29, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 18, 2025
• Journal: International Journal of Pharmaceutics
• Print ISSN: 0378-5173
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-3476
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 653
• Article Number: 123919
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpharm.2024.123919
• Keywords: Internal radiotherapy, Flame spheroidisation, Microspheres, Samarium-doped phosphate glass
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/31892841
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378517324001534