Abstract
Radionuclide therapy aims to treat malignant diseases by systemic administration of radiopharmaceuticals, often using carrier molecules such as peptides and antibodies. The radionuclides used emit electrons or alpha particles as a consequence of radioactive decay, thus leading to local energy deposition. Administration to individual patients can be tailored with regards to the risk of toxicity in normal organs by using absorbed dose planning. The scintillation camera, employed in planar imaging or single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), generates images of the spatially and temporally varying activity distribution. Recent commercially available combined SPECT and computed tomography (CT) systems have dramatically increased the possibility of performing accurate dose planning by using the CT information in several steps of the dose-planning calculation chain. This paper discusses the dosimetry chain used for individual absorbed-dose planning and highlights the areas where hybrid imaging makes significant contributions.
Highlights
The increased diagnostic value of image fusion between function images from single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) or positron emission tomography (PET) combined with the anatomical information obtained from a computed tomography (CT) scan is unquestionable
This review focuses on the use of combined systems for radionuclide therapy applications rather than applications for diagnostic imaging
With access to an X-ray imaging unit, improved absorbed dose calculations have become more widely available for non-research clinical institutions since many of the early problems associated with the manual mathematical image registration of SPECT images and CT images, which were raised because acquisition involved acquisition on separate imaging systems, are obsolete
Summary
The increased diagnostic value of image fusion between function images from single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) or positron emission tomography (PET) combined with the anatomical information obtained from a computed tomography (CT) scan is unquestionable. This review focuses on the use of combined systems (mainly SPECT/CT) for radionuclide therapy applications rather than applications for diagnostic imaging. With access to an X-ray imaging unit (scout view as well as CT), improved absorbed dose calculations have become more widely available for non-research clinical institutions since many of the early problems associated with the manual mathematical image registration of SPECT images and CT images, which were raised because acquisition involved acquisition on separate imaging systems, are obsolete
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