ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the chemistry and the applications of technetium-labeled compounds, and highlights the advances in the field and future trends. The importance of technetium-99m in nuclear medicine continues to grow despite a poor understanding of its chemistry at the tracer level. Technetium is a bright silvery gray metal that crystallizes in a hexagonal close-packed arrangement. The reduction of pertechnetate in aqueous solution has been the subject of numerous studies, as well as the behavior of reduced technetium species. Electrochemical detection of technetium(VI) in aqueous media has accordingly been difficult because of the very rapid gain of another electron to produce technetium(V). The technetium chelates that have been developed and find use in the evaluation of the hepatobiliary system are in general relatively lipophilic compounds. Labeling of proteins with technetium-99m was first attempted in the early 1960s using human serum albumin.
