Abstract
The biological tissue has been mimicked and replaced by other materials, which have shown certain radiological similarity determined by attenuation coefficient (μ), density and atomic number. Specifically, in molecular imaging and radiation therapy have been developed multifunctional radiopharmaceuticals which contain beta/gamma and/or light emitters to chronic degenerative diseases treatment. Therefore, it is necessary to develop phantoms that allow optical and radiometric characterization. Since the agar gel has shown to be a medium which allows to model biological tissue in phototherapy studies, the aim of this study is to determine whether the agar gel may be used as biological tissue substitutes in 99mTc dosimetry. Agar gel was prepared to 1% and 2.3% (water:agar) and its radiologicalproperties as: linear attenuation coefficient obtained by narrow beam geometry and XCOM software, density and effective atomic number (Zeff) were determined. Using the determined μ, photontransmission was calculated by Monte Carlosimulation. The 99mTc source region was immersed in a water phantom, two source regions were used, one source region was filled with water and another with agar gel. For both cases; the cumulated activity () by conjugate view method, the absorbed doseper unitcumulated activity (S) and absorbed dose (D) were determined. The 2.3% concentration gel consistency facilitated its handling during a bigger irradiation time. A was obtained and also this value was corroborated with the XCOM software. The agar gel density was and . The calculated cumulated activity presented 1% difference in both phantoms. The absorbed doseper unitcumulated activity was the same in both media, therefore the D too. Agar gel showed to be equivalent to water in terms of radiological properties for 140 keV photons, thus it can substitute soft tissue in 99mTc dosimetry.
Highlights
In the field of the ionizing radiation dosimetry and medical physics the biological tissue has been mimicked and replaced by other materials, which have physical properties as those corresponding to the real tissue
It has been shown that the agar gel under specific conditions of preparation mimics the biological tissue for optical characterization, the aim of this study was to determinate if the agar gel can be used with radiometric purpose as soft biological tissue substitute when it is irradiated with 140 keV photons
The calculated photon transmission through the agar gel is similar to that occurs in water as is shows in Figure 3 for the three fluencies, this is attributed to the chemical composition of agar gel which is almost completely composed by water [16], which suggests that the photon fraction removed from the radiation field is similar in both media
Summary
In the field of the ionizing radiation dosimetry and medical physics the biological tissue has been mimicked and replaced by other materials, which have physical properties as those corresponding to the real tissue. Equivalent tissue materials and Monte Carlo method have been used to perform dosimetric measurements in radiotherapy and nuclear medicine with the purpose of giving an accurate absorbed dose to patients and reduce it in critical tissues [6], [7], [12], [13]. Its “short” physical half-life of 6 hours and its gamma ray semission (140 keV) allows adequate image quality for correct diagnosis. These features permit its application in the evaluation of equivalent materials to water or tissue with the purpose of developing solid phantoms [6]
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