Radiochemical and biological characteristics of 99mTc‐difloxacin and 99mTc‐pefloxacin for detecting sites of infection

The optimization of the radiolabeling yield of ciprofloxacin analogous, difloxacin and pefloxacin, with ^99mTc was described. At pH 4, difloxacin was labeled with ^99mTc with a labeling yield of 95.6% by adding ^99mTc to 5 mg difloxacin in the presence of 100 µg SnCl₂·2H₂O whereas ^99mTc‐pefloxacin was labeled (98.1%) by adding ^99mTc to 4 mg pefloxacin in the presence of 50 µg SnCl₂·2H₂O. The radiochemical purity for both labeled compounds was evaluated with ITLC and HPLC system. Biological distribution of ^99mTc‐difloxacin and ^99mTc‐pefloxacin was carried out in experimentally induced infection rats, in the left thigh, using Staphylococcus aureus. Both thighs of the rats were dissected and counted and the ratio of bacterial infected thigh/contralateral thigh was then evaluated. T/NT for both ^99mTc‐difloxacin and ^99mTc‐pefloxacin was found to be 5.5±0.5 and 4.9±0.3, respectively, which was higher than that of the commercially available ^99mTc‐ciprofloxacin. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.