Radiation Physics for Nuclear Medicine

✍ Scribed by Marie Claire Cantone (editor), Christoph Hoeschen (editor)

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 294
• Edition: 2011
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The field of nuclear medicine is expanding rapidly, with the development of exciting new diagnostic methods and treatments. This growth is closely associated with significant advances in radiation physics. In this book, acknowledged experts explain the basic principles of radiation physics in relation to nuclear medicine and examine important novel approaches in the field. The first section is devoted to what might be termed the "building blocks" of nuclear medicine, including the mechanisms of interaction between radiation and matter and Monte Carlo codes. In subsequent sections, radiation sources for medical applications, radiopharmaceutical development and production, and radiation detectors are discussed in detail. New frontiers are then explored, including improved algorithms for image reconstruction, biokinetic models, and voxel phantoms for internal dosimetry. Both trainees and experienced practitioners and researchers will find this book to be an invaluable source of up-to-date information.

✦ Table of Contents

Radiation Physics for Nuclear Medicine
Front-matter
Radiation Physics for Nuclear Medicine
Copyright
In Memory of Niky Molho (1938-1993)
Contents
Part I Introduction
1 The Role of Radiation Physics in Nuclear Medicine
2 The Molecular Imaging Pathway to Biomedical Physics
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Fundamentals of Molecular Imaging
2.3 Application of Biological Imaging in the Radiotherapy Process
2.4 Conclusion
References
Part II Fundamental Processes on Radiation Physics
3 Mechanisms of the Interactions Between Radiation and Matter
3.1 Energy Loss of Charged Particles
3.1.1 The Density Effect
3.1.2 Shell Corrections
3.1.3 General Properties of Energy Loss
3.1.4 Restricted Energy Loss
3.1.5 Energy Loss of e+e-
3.1.6 The Case of Mixture and Compounds: The Bragg Additivity Rule
3.1.7 Other Corrections
3.1.8 Range of Particles
3.1.9 delta
-Ray Production
3.1.10 The Landau Fluctuations
3.1.11 Multiple Coulomb Scattering
References
4 Principles of Monte Carlo Calculations and Codes
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Phase Space
4.2.1 Phase Space Density
4.2.2 The Boltzmann Equation
4.3 The Mathematical Basis of the Monte Carlo method
4.3.1 Mean of a Distribution
4.3.2 Central Limit Theorem
4.3.3 Analog Monte Carlo
4.4 Integration by Monte Carlo
4.4.1 Integration Efficiency
4.4.2 Random Sampling
4.4.2.1 Random and Pseudorandom Numbers
4.4.2.2 Sampling from a Discrete Distribution
4.4.2.3 Sampling from a Generic Continuous Distribution
4.4.2.4 The Rejection Technique
4.4.2.5 Other Sampling Techniques
4.5 Particle Transport Monte Carlo
4.5.1 Monte Carlo Categories
4.5.1.1 Microscopic Analog Monte Carlo
4.5.1.2 Macroscopic Monte Carlo
4.5.1.3 Model-Based and Table-Based Codes
4.5.1.4 Biased Monte Carlo
4.6 Geometry
4.7 Monte Carlo Events
4.7.1 Discrete Processes
4.7.2 Continuous Processes
4.7.3 Thresholds and Cutoffs
4.7.3.1 Transport Thresholds
4.7.3.2 Production Thresholds
4.8 Biasing
4.8.1 The Two Basic Rules of Biasing
4.8.2 Importance Biasing
4.8.2.1 Surface Splitting
4.8.2.2 Russian Roulette
4.8.3 Weight Window
4.8.4 Time Reduction: Leading Particle Biasing
4.8.5 Nonanalog Absorption
4.8.6 Biasing Mean Free Paths
4.8.6.1 Decay Length
4.8.6.2 Interaction Length
4.8.6.3 Sampling from a Biased Distribution
4.9 Monte Carlo Results
4.9.1 Estimators
4.9.1.1 Estimator Types
4.9.2 Detectors
4.9.3 Statistical Errors
4.9.3.1 Effect of Sampling Inefficiency on Statistical Errors
4.9.4 Other Errors
4.10 Quality Assurance
References
Part III Radiation Sources and Radiopharmaceutical Productions
5 Sealed Radionuclide and X-Ray Sources in Nuclear Medicine
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Sources
5.2.1 Sealed Sources for Constancy Control of Activity Meters
5.2.2 Sealed Sources Used for Marking of Anatomical Locations in Images
5.2.3 Sources for the Control of Gamma Cameras
5.2.4 Sources for Attenuation Correction of SPECT Measurements Through Transmission Measurements
5.2.4.1 Radionuclide Sources
5.2.4.2 CT
5.2.4.3 Clinical SPECT/CT Systems
5.2.5 Sources for Constancy Check and Attenuation Correction of PET Measurements Through Transmission Measurements
5.2.5.1 Clinical PET/CT Systems
5.2.5.2 Radiation Dosimetry Considerations for SPECT/CT and PET/CT
References
6 Radiopharmaceutical Production
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Radionuclide Properties
6.2.1 Quality and Energy of the Emission
6.2.2 Physical Half-Life
6.2.3 Specific Activity and Purity
6.2.4 Availability of Radionuclides
6.3 The Physics of Radionuclide Production
6.4 The Technology of Radionuclide Production
6.4.1 Reactor Versus Accelerator Production
6.4.2 Cyclotrons
6.4.3 Targetry
6.4.4 Radionuclide Isolation and Purification
6.5 Manufacturing of Radiopharmaceuticals
6.5.1 The Selection of Carrier and Tracer Molecules
6.5.2 General Labelling Requirements
6.5.3 Labelling Methods and Their Impact on Performance
6.6 Quality Control of Radiopharmaceuticals
6.7 Quality Assurance and Good Manufacturing Practice
6.8 Regulatory Aspects
6.9 Radionuclide Availability and Prospectives
References
7 Research and Development of New Radiopharmaceuticals
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Medical Needs
7.3 Overview of R&D Process
7.4 Special Aspects of Research
7.4.1 Targets for Molecular Imaging
7.4.2 Research for New MI Tracers
7.4.3 Preclinical Characterization of New Tracers
7.4.3.1 Binding Studies
7.4.3.2 Animal Studies for Radiation Dosimetry
7.4.3.3 Imaging Studies in Animals
7.5 Special Aspects of Clinical Development
7.5.1 Good Clinical Practice
7.5.2 Safety
7.5.2.1 Compound-Related Safety
7.5.2.2 Assessment of Radiation Risk
7.5.3 Pharmacokinetics
7.5.4 Diagnostic Efficacy
7.5.4.1 Mathematical Modeling of PET Tracer Kinetics in the Brain
7.5.4.2 Anatomical Standardization and Voxel-Based Statistical Analysis
7.5.4.3 Visual Analysis of Images
7.5.4.4 Standardized Uptake Values (SUVs) and SUV Ratios (SUVRs) in PET
7.5.4.5 Formal Proof of Diagnostic Efficacy
7.5.4.6 Number of Patients in Clinical Studies
References
Part IV Radiation Detectors for Medical Applications
8 Basic Principles of Detection of Ionizing Radiation Used in Medical Imaging
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Ionizing Radiation Used in Medical Diagnostics
8.2.1 X-Ray Imaging
8.2.2 Emission Imaging
8.3 Interaction of Photons and Electrons with Matter
8.3.1 Photoelectric Effect
8.3.1.1 Properties
8.3.1.2 Probability
8.3.2 Compton Scattering
8.3.2.1 Properties
8.3.2.2 Probability of Interaction
8.3.3 Interaction of Fast Electrons and Secondary Ionization
8.3.3.1 Scintillator
8.3.3.2 Semiconductors
8.3.3.3 Photographic Emulsion
8.3.3.4 Range
8.4 Statistical Treatment of Measurements
8.5 Detector Assemblies
8.5.1 Signal Processing
8.5.2 Dead Time
8.6 Example: Scatterer for a Compton Camera
8.6.1 The Compton Camera Principle
8.6.2 Considerations Regarding Silicon as an Example for the Sensitive Material for a Compton Camera Scatterer
8.6.2.1 Spatial Resolution
8.6.2.2 Energy Resolution
8.6.2.3 Ratio of Compton Interactions
8.6.2.4 Doppler Broadening
8.6.2.5 Other Characteristics of Silicon
8.6.3 Scatterer Characterization
References
9 Scintillators and Semiconductor Detectors
9.1 Scintillators
9.1.1 Basis of Detection and Requirements
9.1.1.1 Light Yield
9.1.1.2 Linearity
9.1.1.3 Transparency
9.1.1.4 Decay Time
9.1.1.5 Emission Spectrum
9.1.1.6 Chemical Stability and Radiation Hardness
9.1.1.7 Density and Effective Atomic Number
9.1.2 Scintillation Materials and Applicationin Nuclear Medicine
9.2 Semiconductor Detectors
9.2.1 Basic Properties of Semiconductors
9.2.2 Photodetection with Semiconductors
9.2.2.1 Bulk Semiconductor Photodetectors
9.2.2.2 Junction Semiconductor Photodetectors
References
10 New Trends in Detectors for Medical Imaging
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Detector Development
10.2.1 Scintillator Crystals
10.2.2 Photodetectors
10.2.2.1 Photomultiplier Tubes
10.2.2.2 Silicon Photodetectors
10.2.3 Solid-State Detectors
10.2.3.1 Silicon Detectors
10.2.3.2 CZT and CdTe Detectors
10.2.4 Liquid and Gas Detectors
10.2.5 Electronics
10.3 Applications
10.3.1 Positron Emission Tomography
10.3.2 Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography
10.3.3 X-Ray and CT
References
Part V New Frontiers in Nuclear Medicine
11 The PET Magnifier Probe
11.1 Introduction
11.2 The PET Magnifying Probe Concept
11.2.1 The Gain in Resolution
11.2.2 Instrumenting the Probe
11.3 A Toy Simulation of the Probe
11.4 Image Reconstruction
11.5 Expected Performance
11.6 The PET Magnifying Probe Design
11.6.1 The Sensors
11.6.2 Readout Electronics and Data Acquisition
11.6.2.1 Timing
11.6.3 Prototypes
11.6.4 Packaging
11.7 Summary
References
12 Algorithms for Image Reconstruction
12.1 Introduction
12.1.1 Mutual Understanding
12.2 Reconstruction with Analytical Methods
12.2.1 Fourier Slice Theorem Principle
12.2.2 Backprojection
12.2.3 Orthogonal Polynomial Expansion on the Disk
12.3 Iterative Reconstruction Methods
12.3.1 Introduction
12.3.2 Main Components of Iterative ReconstructionAlgorithms
12.3.3 Ingredient 1: Image Model
12.3.4 Ingredient 2: Data Model
12.3.4.1 Poisson Model
12.3.4.2 Gaussian Model
12.3.5 Ingredient 3: System Model
12.3.5.1 Inverse Problems
12.3.5.2 Computation of H
12.3.6 Ingredient 4: Objective Function
12.3.6.1 Maximum A Posteriori Criterion
12.3.6.2 Maximum Likelihood Criterion
12.3.6.3 Least Squares Criterion
12.3.7 Ingredient 5: Optimization Algorithm
12.3.7.1 Search Algorithms
12.3.7.2 Functional Substitution Methods and Maximum Likelihood-Expectation Maximization
12.3.8 Correction of Image Degradation Effects
References
13 Biokinetic Models for Radiopharmaceuticals
13.1 Internal Dosimetry of Radiopharmaceuticals
13.2 Measurement of Activity Curves in Patients
13.2.1 Data Collection
13.2.2 Tracer and Tracee
13.2.3 Efficiency Calibration
13.2.4 Background Correction
13.2.5 Attenuation Correction
13.2.6 Time Schedule
13.3 Formulation and Identification of Biokinetic Models
13.3.1 Analytical Description of the Activity Measurements
13.3.2 Definition of Compartmental Models
13.3.3 Mathematical Solution of the Compartmental Models
13.3.4 A Priori Model Identification
13.3.5 A Posteriori Model Identification
13.4 Some Examples: Biokinetic Models Available in the Literature
13.4.1 Two-Compartment Model for 131I-G250 Antibody
13.4.2 Three- and Five-Compartment Models for 111In-Labelled Monoclonal Antibody
13.4.3 Nine-Compartment Model for Radioiodine
13.4.4 Thirteen-Compartment Model for 111In-DOTATOC
13.4.5 Twenty-Compartment Model for FDG
References
14 Voxel Phantoms for Internal Dosimetry
14.1 Introduction
14.2 The Calculation of Specific Absorbed Fractions
14.2.1 Phantoms
14.2.2 Monte Carlo Calculations
14.2.3 Comparison of SAF Values Calculated with Stylized/Reference Computational Phantoms (Photons)
14.2.4 Comparison of ICRP 30 Approximations and Calculated Electron SAF Values
14.3 Evaluation of Absorbed Doses per Administered Activity for Selected Radiopharmaceuticals
14.4 Towards a More Personalised Dosimetry
14.4.1 Characteristics of Seven Adult Voxel Phantoms
14.4.2 Method to Adjust Source Organ Mass to Reference Values
14.4.3 Dependence of SAFs for Photons on Individual Anatomical Characteristics
14.4.4 Organ Absorbed Doses per Incorporated Activity for Individual Voxel Phantoms
14.5 Summary/Conclusions
References
Index