Small-scale (sub-organ and cellular level) alpha-particle dosimetry methods using an iQID digital autoradiography imaging system

Targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy with alpha-particle emitters (αRPT) is advantageous in cancer treatment because the short range and high local energy deposition of alpha particles enable precise radiation delivery and efficient tumor cell killing. However, these properties create sub-organ dose deposition effects that are not easily characterized by direct gamma-ray imaging (PET or SPECT). We present a computational procedure to determine the spatial distribution of absorbed dose from alpha-emitting radionuclides in tissues using digital autoradiography activity images from an ionizing-radiation quantum imaging detector (iQID). Data from (211)At-radioimmunotherapy studies for allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation in a canine model were used to develop these methods. Nine healthy canines were treated with 16.9–30.9 MBq (211)At/mg monoclonal antibodies (mAb). Lymph node biopsies from early (2–5 h) and late (19–20 h) time points (16 total) were obtained, with 10–20 consecutive 12-µm cryosections extracted from each and imaged with an iQID device. iQID spatial activity images were registered within a 3D volume for dose-point-kernel convolution, producing dose-rate maps. The accumulated absorbed doses for high- and low-rate regions were 9 ± 4 Gy and 1.2 ± 0.8 Gy from separate dose-rate curves, respectively. We further assess uptake uniformity, co-registration with histological pathology, and requisite slice numbers to improve microscale characterization of absorbed dose inhomogeneities in αRPT.