Bremsstrahlung radiation imaging may play an important role in the quantitative evaluation of the spatial-temporal distribution of the β− radioactive emitters in order to optimize and personalize the methodology and dosage of radiopharmaceuticals in radiometabolic therapy. The present work is an attempt to investigates quantitative bremsstrahlung imaging aspects, using a configurable phantom based experimental apparatus with corresponding simulated model, to highlight critical issues and pitfalls, and to identify, whenever possible, directions to overcome, mitigate or likely take advantage of some of them. Procedure for precise phantom activity determination by portable counter, Monte Carlo fine tuning, definition of figures of merit for the choice of optimal image reconstruction parameters, and correction factors for the activity estimation are some of the main explored details to end up with a preliminary quantitative imaging obtained by simulation-measurement comparison.

SPECT systems using pinhole apertures permit radiolabelled molecular spatial resolution, good energy resolution, and high sensitivity are required. We designed what we consider the “optimal” radionuclide detector system for this task. It should allow studying both detection of unstable atherosclerotic plaques and monitoring the effect of therapies. Using mice is particularly challenging in situations that require several intravenous injections of radiotracers, possibly for weeks or even months, in chronically ill animals. Thus, alternative routes of delivering the radiotracer in tail vein should be investigated. In this study, we have performed preliminary measurements of detection of atherosclerotic plaques in genetically modified mice with high-resolution prototype detector. We have also evaluated the feasibility of assessing left ventricular perfusion by intraperitoneal distributions to be imaged in vivo in small animals. Nevertheless, studying cardiovascular diseases in small animal models is very challenging, and in particular, submillimeter delivering of MIBI-Tc in healthy mice.

A new proton beam monitoring system and its dedicated electronics is under development for the TOP-IMPLART proton therapy facility, based on 10 to 100 Hz pulsed proton LINAC, with maximum kinetic energy of 230 MeV. The system consists of segmented ionization chambers that will measure the beam intensity profile, position and direction to monitor the fully active 3+1D beam. The chamber readout electronics, based on multiplexed multichannel sample and hold, dynamically adapts the integration capacitance on each of its input trans-impedance amplifier to the incoming charge, reaching a rather challenging dynamic range larger than 104 and relative sensitivity better than 3%.