Dual SPECT imaging of 111In and 67Ga to simultaneously determine in vivo the pharmacokinetics of different radiopharmaceuticals: a quantitative tool in pre-clinical research.

Dual SPECT imaging of 111In and 67Ga to simultaneously determine in vivo the pharmacokinetics of different radiopharmaceuticals: a quantitative tool in pre-clinical research.
Phys Med Biol. 2018 Dec 06;63(23):235029
Authors: Esquinas PL, Rodríguez-Rodríguez C, Esposito TVF, Harboe J, Bergamo M, Celler A, Saatchi K, Sossi V, Häfeli UO
Abstract
Dual-isotope (DI) studies offer a number of advantages in pre-clinical imaging. These include: reducing study times when compared with sequential scans, reducing the number of animals required for any given study, and most importantly, producing images perfectly registered in space and time that provide simultaneous information about two distinct body functions. The ability of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) to measure and differentiate energies of the emitted photons makes it well suited for DI imaging. However, since scattered photons originating from one radioisotope may be detected in the energy window of the other and thus degrade image quality and quantitative accuracy, scatter and crosstalk corrections must be applied. The decay characteristics of 111In and 67Ga, which are suitable for quantitative DI imaging for up to 2 weeks post-injection, led us to investigate the performance of simultaneous 111In/67Ga SPECT imaging using a small-animal pre-clinical scanner. A series of phantom experiments were performed to investigate image quality and accuracy of activity quant...

Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology - December 6, 2018 Category: Physics Authors: Esquinas PL, Rodríguez-Rodríguez C, Esposito TVF, Harboe J, Bergamo M, Celler A, Saatchi K, Sossi V, Häfeli UO Tags: Phys Med Biol Source Type: research