Optical Imaging of Ionizing Radiation from Clinical Sources. Review uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Nuclear medicine uses ionizing radiation for both in vivo diagnosis and therapy. Ionizing radiation comes from a variety of sources, including x-rays, beam therapy, brachytherapy, and various injected radionuclides. Although PET and SPECT remain clinical mainstays, optical readouts of ionizing radiation offer numerous benefits and complement these standard techniques. Furthermore, for ionizing radiation sources that cannot be imaged using these standard techniques, optical imaging offers a unique imaging alternative. This article reviews optical imaging of both radionuclide- and beam-based ionizing radiation from high-energy photons and charged particles through mechanisms including radioluminescence, Cerenkov luminescence, and scintillation. Therapeutically, these visible photons have been combined with photodynamic therapeutic agents preclinically for increasing therapeutic response at depths difficult to reach with external light sources. Last, new microscopy methods that allow single-cell optical imaging of radionuclides are reviewed.

publication date

  • September 29, 2016

Research

keywords

  • Microscopy, Fluorescence
  • Molecular Imaging
  • Optical Imaging
  • Radiation, Ionizing
  • Radioisotopes
  • Radiometry

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC5093029

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 84994904726

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.2967/jnumed.116.178624

PubMed ID

  • 27688469

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 57

issue

  • 11