RMDP: A Dedicated Package For 131 I SPECT Quantification,Registration and Patient-Specific Dosimetry

Abstract

The limitations of traditional targeted radionuclide therapy (TRT) dosimetry can be overcome by using voxel-based techniques. All dosimetry techniques are reliant on a sequence of quantitative emission and transmission data. The use of ¹³¹I, for example, with NaI or mIBG, presents additional quantification challenges beyond those encountered in low-energy NM diagnostic imaging, including dead-time correction and additional photon scatter and penetration in the camera head. The Royal Marsden Dosimetry Package (RMDP) offers a complete package for the accurate processing and analysis of raw emission and transmission patient data. Quantitative SPECT reconstruction is possible using either FBP or OS-EM algorithms. Manual, marker- or voxel-based registration can be used to register images from different modalities and the sequence of SPECT studies required for 3-D dosimetry calculations. The 3-D patient-specific dosimetry routines, using either a beta-kernel or voxel S-factor, are included. Phase-fitting each voxel's activity series enables more robust maps to be generated in the presence of imaging noise, such as is encountered during late, low-count scans or when there is significant redistribution within the VOI between scans. Error analysis can be applied to each generated dose-map. Patients receiving ¹³¹I-mIBG, ¹³¹I-NaI, and ¹⁸⁶Re-HEDP therapies have been analyzed using RMDP. A Monte-Carlo package, developed specifically to address the problems of ¹³¹I quantification by including full photon interactions in a hexagonal-hole collimator and the gamma camera crystal, has been included in the dosimetry package. It is hoped that the addition of this code will lead to improved ¹³¹I image quantification and will contribute towards more accurate 3-D dosimetry.