Beta and alpha emission tomography for three-dimensional autoradiography
AssigneesArizona Board of Regents on Behalf of the University of Arizona, inviCro, LLC
InventorsHarrison H. Barrett, Brian Miller, Yijun Ding, Liying Chen, John William Hoppin, Luca Caucci
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention provides methods and systems for 3D imaging of in vivo and ex vivo tissues. The disclosed systems and methods employ an autoradiographic approach where particles emitted by a radioactive composition within the tissue are detected. Once detected, a 3D representation of the source of particles within the tissue is reconstructed for viewing and analysis.
Claims20
A method for reconstructing a 3D distribution of a source of particles, the method comprising the steps of:
- providing said source of particles, wherein said particles comprise beta particles, alpha particles, positrons, or conversion electrons;
- repeating, for each of a plurality of said particles from said source, the steps of:
- recording an image of a particle track with a particle track detector;
- determining attributes of said particle track using said particle track image;
- and
- storing said attributes of said particle track;
- thereby generating attributes for each of said plurality of particles from said source;
- and
- reconstructing said 3D distribution of said source of particles using said attributes for each of said plurality of particles.
A method for imaging a source of particles within a tissue sample, the method comprising the steps of:
- recording images of a plurality of particle tracks with a particle track detector;
- determining attributes of said plurality of particle tracks from said images;
- storing said attributes of each of said plurality of particle tracks;
- repeating said detecting, determining and storing steps for a plurality of depths within said tissue sample, wherein said plurality of depths are obtained by removing one or more layers of said tissue sample and wherein removal of each layer of said tissue sample exposes a deeper surface of said tissue sample, thereby generating particle track attributes for a plurality of particles from said source at a plurality of depths within said tissue sample;
- and
- reconstructing a 3D image of said source of particles using said particle track attributes for a plurality of particles from said source at a plurality of depths within said tissue sample and said plurality of depths within said tissue sample.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.