1. Gamma rays excited radioluminescence tomographic imaging
- Author
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Xuanxuan Zhang, Shouping Zhu, Yang Li, Yonghua Zhan, Xueli Chen, Fei Kang, Jing Wang, and Xu Cao
- Subjects
Radioluminescence imaging ,Tomography ,Diffusion equation ,Image reconstruction ,Medical technology ,R855-855.5 - Abstract
Abstract Background Radionuclide-excited luminescence imaging is an optical radionuclide imaging strategy to reveal the distributions of radioluminescent nanophosphors (RLNPs) inside small animals, which uses radioluminescence emitted from RLNPs when excited by high energy rays such as gamma rays generated during the decay of radiotracers used in clinical nuclear medicine imaging. Currently, there is no report of tomographic imaging based on radioluminescence. Methods In this paper, we proposed a gamma rays excited radioluminescence tomography (GRLT) to reveal three-dimensional distributions of RLNPs inside a small animal using radioluminescence through image reconstruction from surface measurements of radioluminescent photons using an inverse algorithm. The diffusion equation was employed to model propagations of radioluminescent photons in biological tissues with highly scattering and low absorption characteristics. Results Phantom and artificial source-implanted mouse model experiments were employed to test the feasibility of GRLT, and the results demonstrated that the ability of GRLT to reveal the distribution of RLNPs such as Gd2O2S:Tb using the radioluminescent signals when excited by gamma rays produced from 99mTc. Conclusions With the emerging of targeted RLNPs, GRLT can provide new possibilities for in vivo and noninvasive examination of biological processes at cellular levels. Especially, combining with Cerenkov luminescence imaging, GRLT can achieve dual molecular information of RLNPs and nuclides using single optical imaging technology.
- Published
- 2018
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