Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Evaluation Of Yttrium-90 Positron Emission Tomography Dosimetry, Katherine N. Tapp

Open Access Dissertations

Purpose: Radioembolization is a novel treatment which utilizes the liver's unique dual system blood supply to trap yttrium-90 (⁹⁰Y) microspheres in microvasculature near liver tumors. Radioembolization dose planning and dosimetry are based on crude, inaccurate assumptions due to the lack of knowledge of patient specific ⁹⁰Y microsphere distribution. In recent years, the very small 3.1867e-5 internal pair production decay branch of ⁹⁰Y has been shown to allow for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging following radioembolization. This work explores the accuracy and limitation of ⁹⁰Y PET imaging due to the extremely low signal to noise (SNR) …