Cancer treatment often fails when metastatic lesions are not adequately treated. Targeted therapies using alpha-particle emitters promises to provide a most effective approach to cell-directed treatment of metastatic lesions in cancer therapy. Researchers need capabilities and tools to show that the local biodistribution of targeted, short-range alpha-emitters is sufficient to thoroughly irradiate and destroy micrometastases. This talk will present an overview of a high-resolution imaging technology referred to as iQID (ionizing-radiation Quantum Imaging Detector). iQID is sensitive to a broad range of ionizing-radiation including gamma-ray and X-ray photons as well as alpha, beta, and neutron particles. iQID combines advances in CCD/CMOS cameras, graphics processing hardware, and night-vision technology for real-time imaging and position estimation of individual particles. iQID has proven beneficial in a number of imaging applications and was originally developed as a high-resolution gamma-ray camera for pre-clinical single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). iQID’s high sensitivity to alpha and beta particles has been expanded to single-particle digital autoradiography and the technology is actively being implemented as a high-resolution imaging and microdosimety tool for researchers investigating the use of alpha and beta particles in cancer therapy.
