Objective To explore the synthesis of photographic developer 2-18 F-fluoropropionic acid(18 F-FPA) and its imaging value in prostate cancer-bearing nude mice.Methods 18F-FPA was automatically synthesized by using the CFN-multi-200 multifunctional drug synthesis module,then the quality control were performed.The PC3 prostate cancer-bearing nude mice models(16 cases) and 22RV1 prostate cancer-bearing nude mice models(4 cases) were constructed.Then 18F-FPA imaging was conducted in these models,which were compared with those by 2-deoxy-2-18 F fluoro-D-glueose(18 F-FDG) and 11C-choline for evaluating the imaging value of 18F-FPA in prostate cancer.The mice bearing PC3 prostate cancer were randomly divided into 4 group for conducting the biodistribution measurement.The percentage rate of injection dose per gram tissue(％ID/g) and tumor/non-tumor tissue ratio was calculated.Results The synthetic process of 18 F-FPA was about 40 min,the yield rate was (38 ± 2) ％ (without time correction),the radiochemical purity was more than 97 ％,with good in vitro stability.After 18F-FPA injection,the tumor image in two kinds of tumor-bearing nude micecould was developed clearly,while a slight uptake was detected in developed tumor with 18 F-FDG and n C-choline imaging.The biodistributions of tumor in PC3 prostate cancer bearing nude mice were (6.91 ± 0.72),(6.99 ±0.55),(7.17 ± 0.25),(6.49 ± 0.74) ％ ID/g at 0.5,1.0,2.0 and 4.0 h after 18 F-FPA injection,respectively,the difference was not statistically significant(P＞0.05).Conclusion 18 F-FPA is simply synthesized,has better imaging effect for the nude mice bearing prostate cancer and is expected to be used for clinical detection of prostate cancer.