Encarnação Pedro M C C, Correia Pedro M M, Mehrdel Baharak, Bredwell Isabella, Veloso João F C A, Caravaca Javier, Seo Youngho
I3N - Physics Department, University of Aveiro, Portugal.
Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143 USA.
IEEE Trans Radiat Plasma Med Sci. 2025 May;9(5):564-577. doi: 10.1109/trpms.2025.3527874. Epub 2025 Jan 9.
Radiopharmaceutical therapy has demonstrated a high efficacy in the treatment of various tumor types. One of the radionuclides already used in the clinic is Lu, a beta emitter that also emits several photons imageable with SPECT. Quantitative imaging of Lu is critical for developing new radiopharmaceuticals. Energy resolution is an important factor when imaging multiple photon emissions. Solid-state detectors offer a superior performance over scintillators, that are commonly used in commercially-available preclinical SPECT scanners. This study demonstrates the feasibility of Tc and Lu quantitative imaging in mouse phantoms, individually and simultaneously, with a SPECT prototype built with four CdZnTe (CZT) detector heads and a custom-designed and energy-optimized parallel-hole tungsten collimator. With a custom implementation of the one-step late (OSL) image reconstruction algorithm, the system is capable of imaging energies from ~70 keV to 250 keV. Above 250 keV, images were significantly affected by septal penetration, consistent with the collimator design. A recovery coefficient within 25% was obtained for activities as low as 2 kBqmL for Tc and 45% for Lu. Compared to a commercial NaI-based preclinical SPECT (VECTor4/CT), our prototype showed a superior energy resolution (< 5% at 140 keV), a similar uniformity with a high-compact design.
放射性药物治疗已在多种肿瘤类型的治疗中显示出高效性。临床上已使用的放射性核素之一是镥,它是一种β发射体,同时也发射几种可用单光子发射计算机断层显像(SPECT)成像的光子。镥的定量成像对于开发新的放射性药物至关重要。在对多光子发射进行成像时,能量分辨率是一个重要因素。固态探测器相对于闪烁体具有卓越的性能,闪烁体常用于市售的临床前SPECT扫描仪。本研究展示了使用一台由四个碲锌镉(CZT)探测器头和一个定制设计且经过能量优化的平行孔钨准直器构建的SPECT原型,对小鼠模型单独及同时进行锝和镥定量成像的可行性。通过一步延迟(OSL)图像重建算法的定制实现,该系统能够对约70keV至250keV的能量进行成像。在250keV以上,图像受到隔板穿透的显著影响,这与准直器设计一致。对于锝,低至2kBq/mL的活度获得了25%以内的恢复系数,对于镥则为45%。与基于碘化钠的市售临床前SPECT(VECTor4/CT)相比,我们的原型显示出卓越的能量分辨率(在140keV时<5%),以及具有高紧凑设计的相似均匀性。