  At present, targeted radiotherapy (TR) is acknowledged to have great
potential in oncology. A large list of interesting radionuclides is identified,
including several radioisotopes of lanthanides, amongst them $^{145}$Sm and
$^{153}$Sm. In this work the possibility of their production at a cyclotron was
investigated using a deuteron beam and a samarium target. The excitation
functions of the $^{nat}$Sm(d,x)$^{145153}$Sm reactions were determined for
deuteron energies up to 50 MeV using the stacked-foil technique and
high-resolution $\gamma$-ray spectrometry. The measured cross sections and the
contributing reactions were analyzed by comparison with results of the ALICE,
EMPIRE and TALYS nuclear reaction codes. A short overview and comparison of
possible production routes is given.
