Production and dosimetry of [¹⁴O]water for PET activation studies

[¹⁴O]water was produced by the ¹⁴N(p,n)¹⁴O reaction in quantities greater than 80mCi (EOB). The carbon-11 impurity in the final product was approximately 0.003±0.002% of ¹⁴O activity at EOB. A factor of 0.5±0.02 was obtained to correct the dose calibrator for the additional 2.313MeV γ-ray. The effective dose equivalent was calculated for ¹⁴O and ¹⁵O using MIRDOSE, and the ¹⁴O dose was found to be ≈70% of that for ¹⁵O. For scanner performance based on noise equivalent count measurements, the peak activity concentration for ¹⁴O was 30% lower than that for ¹⁵O. At their peak activity concentrations the noise equivalent count rate for ¹⁴O was found to be about 13% less than that for ¹⁵O.