Trend of Total and District Activity in Patients Subjected to Intralymphatic Radiotherapy

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine the dose received by every organ of patients subjected to intralymphatic radiotherapy with Lipiodol F¹⁸¹I. For this purpose external counting techniques have been devised for determining the effective half-life (Te). The determination of the initial concentration (Co) will be considered in a subsequent paper. Systematic checks were carried out on 9 patients with a Nukab scanner by means of sectorial counts, total body scanning and body profiles. By measuring the areas of successive profiles in the same patient, the effective half-life of the radioactive substance in the different body sections could be exactly determined. No shifting of the medium from the abdominal to the thoracic region by direct lymphatic route could be detected from the first day after lymphography until almost total decay of ¹³¹I. The trend of radioactivity accumulation in the lung was studied during injection and during the first few hours after lymphography. Some hypotheses as to the trend of activity in the various body districts and the possible metabolic routes of the medium in the body are advanced.