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Radiation doses of radiopharmaceuticals to patients in nuclear medicine are, as the standard method, estimated by the
administered activity, medical imaging (e.g. PET imaging), compartmental modeling and Monte Carlo simulation of
radiation with reference digital human phantoms. However, in each of the contributing terms, individual uncertainty due
to measurement techniques, patient variability and computation methods may propagate to the uncertainties of the
calculated organ doses to the individual patient. To evaluate the overall uncertainties and the quality assurance of internal
absorbed doses, a method was developed within the framework of the MADEIRA Project (Minimizing Activity and
Dose with Enhanced Image quality by Radiopharmaceutical Administrations) to quantitatively analyze the uncertainties
in each component of the organ absorbed doses after administration of 18F-choline to prostate cancer patients undergoing
nuclear medicine diagnostics.
First, on the basis of the organ PET and CT images of the patients as well as blood and urine samples, a model structure
of 18F-choline was developed and the uncertainties of the model parameters were determined. Second, the model
parameter values were sampled and biokinetic modeling using these sampled parameter values were performed. Third,
the uncertainties of the new specific absorbed fraction (SAF) values derived with different phantoms representing
individual patients were presented. Finally, the uncertainties of absorbed doses to the patients were calculated by
applying the ICRP/ICRU adult male reference computational phantom. In addition to the uncertainty analysis, the
sensitivity of the model parameters on the organ PET images and absorbed doses was indicated by coupling the model
input and output using regression and partial correlation analysis.
The results showed that the uncertainty factors of absorbed dose to patients are in most cases less than a factor of 2
without taking into account the uncertainties caused by the variability and uncertainty of individual human phantoms.
The sensitivity study showed that the metabolic transfer parameter from the blood to soft tissues has a strong influence
on blood sample collection from the beginning until 500 min. post administration; the transfer pathways between blood
and liver impact strongly the liver imaging during the time course. The results of this study suggest that organ image
acquisition of liver and kidneys after 100 min. as well as blood and urine sample collection are necessary for the
reduction of uncertainties of absorbed dose estimates to patients.
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