{"entity":{"id":"f-18","kind":"isotope","name":"Fluorine-18","aka":["18F"],"tldr":"A short-lived radioactive form of fluorine, made fresh each morning at a local facility, that is attached to a sugar or other small molecule and used for a PET scan.","summary":"Fluorine-18 is the workhorse radionuclide of clinical PET. Its 109.8-minute half-life is long enough for a regional cyclotron to make a batch, run it through automated radiochemistry and quality control, and ship unit doses to nearby hospitals, but short enough that the whole chain has to be scheduled tightly around the day's scan list; roughly a third of the activity is lost every hour.\n\nAlmost all clinical 18F is made by firing protons at water enriched in oxygen-18, driving the 18O(p,n)18F reaction to give no-carrier-added [18F]fluoride in solution, which is then used in automated synthesis modules to build tracers such as FDG, PSMA and amyloid agents. It decays 96.7% by positron emission and 3.3% by electron capture, giving the 511 keV annihilation photon pair that PET detects.\n\nBecause the half-life supports regional distribution, F-18 tracers do not depend on a single generator or reactor the way technetium-99m or gallium-68 historically have; supply risk sits instead with cyclotron and radiopharmacy network capacity (PETNET, Cardinal Health, GE HealthCare, Jubilant, SOFIE and others) rather than with a single upstream bottleneck.","status":"established","asOf":"2026-09-22","links":[{"label":"FDA label: Fludeoxyglucose F 18 Injection (initial approval 2005)","url":"https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2005/021870lbl.pdf"},{"label":"IAEA TRS 468: cyclotron production of 18F","url":"https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/trs468_web.pdf"},{"label":"PMC: PET imaging with 18F-based radiopharmaceuticals","url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3478111/"}],"tags":["positron emitter","cyclotron"],"related":["fludeoxyglucose-f18","pylarify","psma-1007-f18","fluoroestradiol-f18","flotufolastat","fluciclovine-f18"],"indications":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["pet","pet-ct","cyclotron-isotope-production","pet-tracer-manufacturing","fdg-pet","psma-pet"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"symbol":"18F","element":"Fluorine","massNumber":18,"halfLife":"109.8 minutes","emissions":["β+ 96.7% (max 0.634 MeV)","electron capture 3.3%","annihilation γ 511 keV"],"emissionClass":"positron","use":"imaging","production":"Cyclotron: 18O(p,n)18F on water enriched in oxygen-18 (no-carrier-added fluoride); 20Ne(d,α)18F on neon gas is an older electrophilic-fluorine route, now largely abandoned.","supply":"adequate","supplyNote":"Regional cyclotron networks (PETNET Solutions/Siemens, Cardinal Health, GE HealthCare, SOFIE, Jubilant Radiopharma) distribute unit doses across metropolitan areas; the 110-minute half-life is long enough for same-morning delivery, so supply is not dependent on a single site the way generator-based isotopes are.","chelators":[],"pairedWith":[],"since":1976},"route":"/isotopes/f-18/","neighbours":{"drug":[{"id":"choline-c11","kind":"drug","name":"Choline C-11","route":"/drugs/choline-c11/"},{"id":"florastamin-f18","kind":"drug","name":"Florastamin F-18","route":"/drugs/florastamin-f18/"},{"id":"f-18-florbetaben","kind":"drug","name":"Florbetaben F-18","route":"/drugs/f-18-florbetaben/"},{"id":"f-18-florbetapir","kind":"drug","name":"Florbetapir F-18","route":"/drugs/f-18-florbetapir/"},{"id":"f-18-fet","kind":"drug","name":"Floretyrosine F-18 (FET)","route":"/drugs/f-18-fet/"},{"id":"f-18-florquinitau","kind":"drug","name":"Florquinitau F-18","route":"/drugs/f-18-florquinitau/"},{"id":"f-18-flortaucipir","kind":"drug","name":"Flortaucipir 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