Abstract
Autoradiography is a widely used technique for imaging trace quantities ofradioactivity within biological samples, conventionally using photographicfilm. This method produces images with high spatial resolution, but it suffersfrom very low sensitivity and poor dynamic range. Digital autoradiographysystems with greatly improved sensitivity and linearity are commerciallyavailable, but the spatial resolution is usually much less than that achievedusing film. We report here the design, construction and characterization of anovel digital autoradiography system based on scientific-grade charged coupleddevices (CCDs). Images of x-ray and β emissions from radionuclidescommonly used in autoradiography show that the system can perform high-speedquantitative imaging with a spatial resolution of ~30 µm. Usinga frame by frame acquisition method the dynamic range is shown to be at leastthree orders of magnitude. The absolute detection efficiency is comparable tothe best of the currently available digital systems. CCD images of 125Iand 14C radioisotope distributions in tissue samples are superior tothe equivalent film images and have been acquired in 1-10% of the time.
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