Initial results for Hybrid SPECT--conjugate-view tumor dosimetry in 131I-anti-B1 antibody therapy of previously untreated patients with lymphoma.

UNLABELLED: A study of the use of 131I-labeled anti-B1 monoclonal antibody, proceeded by an unlabeled predose, for therapy of previously untreated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients has recently been completed at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. More than half of the patients treated were imaged intratherapy with SPECT to separate apparently large tumors, unresolved by conjugate views, into individual ones specified by CT scan. The dosimetry of these tumors is reported here.
METHODS: The activity-quantification procedure used 3-dimensional CT-to-SPECT fusion so that attenuation maps could be computed from CT and that volumes of interest could be drawn on the CT slices and transferred to the SPECT images. Daily conjugate-view images after a tracer dose of labeled anti-B1 antibody followed by an unlabeled predose provided the shape of the time-activity curve for the calculation of therapy dosimetry. Reconstructed SPECT counts that were within a volume of interest were converted to activity by using a background-and-radius-adaptive conversion factor. Activities were increased for tumors less than 200 g using a recovery-coefficient factor derived from activity measurements for a set of spheres with volumes ranging from 1.6 to 200 cm3. The calculated tumor radiation absorbed dose was based, in part, on the CT volume and on the intratherapy-SPECT activity.
RESULTS: The mean of the radiation dose values for 131 abdominal or pelvic tumors in 31 patients was 616 cGy with a standard deviation of +/- 50 cGy. The largest dose was 40 Gy and the smallest dose was 73 cGy. The mean volume for the tumors was 59.2 +/- 11.2 cm3. The correlation coefficient between absorbed dose and tumor volume was small (r2 = 0.007), and the slope of the least-squares fit represented a decrease of only 36.4 cGy per 100 cm3 increase in volume. This small slope may reflect a characteristic of anti-B1 antibody therapy that is important for its success. The mean absorbed dose per unit administered activity was 1.83 +/- 0.145 Gy/GBq. The largest value was 12.6 Gy/GBq, and the smallest value was 0.149 Gy/GBq. The mean dose for 9 axillary tumors in 5 patients was significantly lower than the average dose for abdominal and pelvic tumors (P = 0.01). Therefore, axillary tumors should be grouped separately in assessing dose-response relationships. Anecdotal patient results tended to verify the validity of using the shape of the conjugate-view time-activity curve for the average SPECT-intratherapy curve. However, there was also an indication that the shape varies somewhat for individual tumors with respect to time to peak.
CONCLUSION: Hybrid SPECT-conjugate-view dosimetry provided radiation absorbed dose estimates for the individual patient tumors that were resolved by CT.