Quantitation of 211At in small volumes for evaluation of targeted radiotherapy in animal models.

We have evaluated SPECT and two planar imaging methods, geometric mean (GM) and buildup factor (BF), for their potential to quantitate in vivo 211At distributions in rat spinal subarachnoid spaces using phantom studies. The use of medium-energy collimators and the small diameter (3 mm) of the subarachnoid space complicate quantitation. Net activities from distributions in various backgrounds were obtained using a large region of interest with background subtraction. Results showed quantitation accuracy within 10% for SPECT and BF in low backgrounds increasing to 25% at higher background levels while GM errors ranged from 20 to 45%. We have also obtained images of [211At]astatide distributions, administered intrathecally, in rats.