A preclinical simulated dataset of S-values and investigation of the impact of rescaled organ masses using the MOBY phantom

Abstract

Nuclear medicine and radiation therapy, although well established, are still rapidly evolving, by exploiting animal models, aiming to define precise dosimetry in molecular imaging protocols. The purpose of the present study was to create a dataset based on the MOBY phantom for the calculation of organ-to-organ S-values of commonly used radionuclides. S-values of most crucial organs were calculated using specific biodistributions with a whole-body heterogeneous source. In order to determine the impact of the varying organs’ size on the S-values, and based on the fact that the anatomic properties of the organs are correlated with S-values, dosimetric calculations were performed by simulating the MOBY-version 2 model with different whole-body masses. The GATE Monte Carlo simulation toolkit was used for all simulations. Two mouse models of different body masses were developed to calculate the S-values of eight commonly used radioisotopes in nuclear imaging studies, namely 18F, 68Ga, 131I, 111In, 177Lu, and 99mTc, 90Y and 188Re. The impact of modified mass of the source organs in S-values was investigated with 18F, and 90Y in five different scalings of the source organs. Based on realistic preclinical exams, three mouse models, 22, 28 and 34 g, were used as input in the GATE simulator based on realistic preclinical exams to calculate the S-values of the six radioisotopes used. Whole body activity distributions were used as the source organ. The simulation procedure was validated in terms of extracting individual organ-to-organ S-values, and consequently in calculating the new S-values using a heterogeneous activity distribution as a source. The calculation was validated with 18F source in a 30 g mouse model. For the generation of the new S-values with heterogeneous activity sources, four organs were used for the calculation of a single S-value. The absorbed doses per organ were compared with previously published reports. The validation procedure of 18F indicates discrepancies, ranging from 5.32 to 7.72%. The S-values in Gy/(Bq·s), with the corresponding uncertainties of all simulated cases, are given in the developed dataset. The comparison of the dosimetric calculations on the three different phantoms highlights the impact of the mouse model size on the calculated S-values. The developed dataset can be used to improve the accuracy of the absorbed dose calculations in small animal dosimetry and depict the crucial impact the mouse size has on S-values’ calculation. The generated S-values dataset for different radiopharmaceuticals contributes to the estimation of radiation dose to mice in small animal PET and SPECT exams. Finally, the detailed methodology of the procedure is provided.