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Simultaneous visualization of multiple radionuclides in vivo

Nature Biomedical Engineering volume 6, pages 640–647 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The insufficient energy and spatial resolutions of radionuclide imaging with conventional scintillation detectors restrict the visualization of multiple radionuclides and of microstructures in tissue. Here we report the development and performance of an imaging system equipped with a cadmium telluride diode detector that achieves an energy resolution of 1.7% at 140 keV and a spatial resolution of 250 μm. The combination of high-resolution spectra fitted to an X-ray analysis model of the emission lines of the radionuclides in a chosen energy band allowed us to accurately determine individual radiation activities from three radionuclides to simultaneously visualize thyroid tissue (via intravenously administered iodine-125), mandibular lymph nodes (via the intramuscular injection of indium-111) and parotid lymph nodes (via a subcutaneous injection of technetium-99m) in mice. Multi-radionuclide imaging may find advantageous applications in biomedical imaging.

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Fig. 1: Separation of the spectral components from overlapping nuclides.
Fig. 2: Quantification of radioactivity.
Fig. 3: Evaluation of spatial resolutions.
Fig. 4: Multi-radionuclide in vivo imaging.

Data availability

The main data supporting the results in this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information. The raw and analysed datasets generated during the study are too large to be publicly shared, yet they are available for research purposes from the corresponding authors on reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The custom code for data collection, spectral fitting and image reconstruction is intended to be used for the joint development of radionuclide imaging systems with companies. The code is, however, available for research purposes from the corresponding authors on request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) (A.Y., S.T., T.O. and T.T.), MEXT, JAPAN, a matching fund programme of Centers for Inter-University Collaboration from ISAS/JAXA (A.Y, S.T. and T.O.) and MEXT JSPS KAKENHI grant numbers 18H02700 (S.T. and A.Y.), 18H05463 (T.T., A.Y., S.T., T.O. and M.K.) and 20K16692 (A.Y.).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Atsushi Yagishita, Shin’ichiro Takeda.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan

    Atsushi Yagishita, Shin’ichiro Takeda, Miho Katsuragawa, Tenyo Kawamura, Hideaki Matsumura, Tadashi Orita, Izumi O. Umeda, Goro Yabu, Pietro Caradonna, Tadayuki Takahashi, Shin Watanabe, Yousuke Kanayama & Hiroshi Mizuma

  2. Exploratory Oncology Research and Clinical Trial Center, National Cancer Center, Kashiwa, Japan

    Atsushi Yagishita, Kazunobu Ohnuki & Hirofumi Fujii

  3. Department of Physics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Tenyo Kawamura, Goro Yabu & Tadayuki Takahashi

  4. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS)/JAXA, Sagamihara, Japan

    Shin Watanabe

  5. Laboratory for Pathophysiological and Health Science, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Kobe, Japan

    Yousuke Kanayama & Hiroshi Mizuma

Authors
  1. Atsushi Yagishita
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Contributions

A.Y. initiated the project. A.Y. designed the experiments with help from H. Mizuma, Y.K. and H.F. A.Y., S.T., T.O., G.Y. and T.K. performed the experiments with help from I.O.U. and K.O., and H.F., S.T., M.K., G.Y. and H. Matsumura analysed the data. S.W., S.T., T.T. and A.Y. contributed materials/analysis tools. A.Y. wrote the paper with help from P.C., T.T., H.F., H. Mizuma and Y.K.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Atsushi Yagishita or Shin’ichiro Takeda.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

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Nature Biomedical Engineering thanks Ramsey Badawi, Paul Lecoq and Marco Pizzichemi for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Yagishita, A., Takeda, S., Katsuragawa, M. et al. Simultaneous visualization of multiple radionuclides in vivo. Nat. Biomed. Eng 6, 640–647 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-022-00866-6

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