Active and passive dosimetry for beta-emitting radiopharmaceutical therapy agents in a custom SPECT/CT compatible phantom.

Objective. This work introduces a novel approach to performing active and passive dosimetry for beta-emitting radionuclides in solution using common dosimeters. The measurements are compared to absorbed dose to water (Dw) estimates from Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. We present a method for obtaining absorbed dose to water, measured with dosimeters, from beta-emitting radiopharmaceutical agents using a custom SPECT/CT compatible phantom for validation of Monte Carlo based absorbed dose to water estimates.Approach. A cylindrical, acrylic SPECT/CT compatible phantom capable of housing an IBA EFD diode, Exradin A20-375 parallel plate ion chamber, unlaminated EBT3 film, and thin TLD100 microcubes was constructed for the purpose of measuring absorbed dose to water from solutions of common beta-emitting radiopharmaceutical therapy agents. The phantom is equipped with removable detector inserts that allow for multiple configurations and is designed to be used for validation of image-based absorbed dose estimates with detector measurements. Two experiments with131I and one experiment with177Lu were conducted over extended measurement intervals with starting activities of approximately 150-350 MBq. Measurement data was compared to Monte Carlo simulations using the egs_chamber user code in EGSnrc 2019.Main results. Agreement withink= 1 uncertainty between measured and MC predictedDwwas observed for all dosimeters, except the A20-375 ion chamber during the second131I experiment. Despite the agreement, the measured values were generally lower than predicted values by 5%-15%. The uncertainties atk = 1 remain large (5%-30% depending on the dosimeter) relative to other forms of radiation therapy.Significance. Despite high uncertainties, the overall agreement between measured and simulated absorbed doses is promising for the use of dosimeter-based RPT measurements in the validation of MC predictedDw.

The effect of attenuation map, scatter energy window width, and volume of interest on the calibration factor calculation in quantitative 177Lu SPECT imaging: Simulation and phantom study.

PURPOSE: The objective of this study was to evaluate the image degrading factors in quantitative 177Lu SPECT imaging when using both main gamma photopeak energies. METHODS: Phantom measurements with two different vials containing various calibrated activities in air or water were performed to derive a mean calibration factor (CF) for large and small volumes of interest (VOIs). In addition, Monte Carlo simulations were utilized to investigate the effect of scatter energy window width, scatter correction method, such as effective scatter source estimation (ESSE) and triple energy window (TEW), and attenuation map on the quantification of 177Lu. RESULTS: The measured mean CF using large and small VOIs in water was 4.50 ±â€¯0.80 and 4.80 ±â€¯0.72 cps MBq-1, respectively. Simulations showed a reference CF of 3.3 cps MBq-1 for the water-filled phantom considering all photons excluding scattered events. By using the attenuation map generated for 190 keV photons, the calculated CFs for 113 keV and 208 keV are 10% lower than by using the weighted mean energy of 175 keV for 177Lu. The calculated CF using the TEW correction was 17% higher than using the ESSE method for a water-filled phantom. However, our findings showed that an appropriate scatter window combination can reduce this difference between TEW and ESSE methods. CONCLUSIONS: The present work implies that choosing a suitable width of scatter energy windows can reduce uncertainties in radioactivity quantification. It is suggested to generate the attenuation map at 113 keV and 208 keV, separately. Furthermore, using small VOIs is suggested in CF calculation.

Optimizing Image Quantification for 177Lu SPECT/CT Based on a 3D Printed 2-Compartment Kidney Phantom.

The aim of this work was to find an optimal setup for activity determination of 177Lu-based SPECT/CT imaging reconstructed with 2 commercially available methods (xSPECT Quant and Flash3D). For this purpose, 3-dimensional (3D)-printed phantoms of different geometries were manufactured, different partial-volume correction (PVC) methods were applied, and the accuracy of the activity determination was evaluated. Methods: A 2-compartment kidney phantom (70% cortical and 30% medullary compartment), a sphere, and an ellipsoid of equal volumes were 3D printed, filled with 177Lu, and scanned with a SPECT/CT system. Reconstructions were performed with xSPECT and Flash3D. Different PVC methods were applied to find an optimal quantification setup: method 1 was a geometry-specific recovery coefficient based on the 3D printing model, method 2 was a geometry-specific recovery coefficient based on the low-dose CT scan, method 3 was an enlarged volume of interest including spilled-out counts, method 4 was activity concentration in the peak milliliter applied to the entire CT-based volume, and method 5 was a fixed threshold of 42% of the maximum in a large volume containing the object of interest. Additionally, the influence of postreconstruction gaussian filtering was investigated. Results: Although the recovery coefficients of sphere and ellipsoid differed by only 0.7%, a difference of 31.7% was observed between the sphere and the renal cortex phantoms. Without postfiltering, the model-based recovery coefficients (methods 1 and 2) resulted in the best accuracies (xSPECT, 1.5%; Flash3D, 10.3%), followed by the enlarged volume (method 3) (xSPECT, 8.5%; Flash3D, 13.0%). The peak-milliliter method (method 4) showed large errors only for sphere and ellipsoid (xSPECT, 23.4%; Flash3D, 21.6%). Applying a 42% threshold (method 5) led to the largest quantification errors (xSPECT, 32.3%; Flash3D, 46.7%). After postfiltering, a general increase in the errors was observed. Conclusion: In this work, 3D printing was used as a prototyping technique for a geometry-specific investigation of SPECT/CT reconstruction parameters and PVC methods. The optimal setup for activity determination was found to be an unsmoothed SPECT/CT reconstruction in combination with a recovery coefficient based on the low-dose CT. The difference between spheric and renal recovery coefficients suggests that the typically applied volume-dependent but only sphere-based recovery coefficient lookup tables should be replaced by a more geometry-specific alternative.