Essentials of Nuclear Medicine Physics, Instrumentation, and Radiation Biology 4th Edition

Book Preface

After many years of postgraduate training, many physicians have forgotten some (or most) of their undergraduate and high school physics and may find submersion into nuclear physics somewhat daunting. This book begins with a very basic intro-duction to nuclear physics and the interactions of radiation and matter. It then proceeds with a discus-sion of the methods for production of nuclides and the instrumentation used for dose measurement, surveying radioactivity, and imaging. The imaging section has been expanded to cover MRI and PET‐MRI in addition to SPECT, PET, and PET‐CT. The final chapters of the book focus on radiation biology, radiation safety, radiopharmaceutical therapy, and radiation accidents.
Numerous illustrations are included. They are highly schematic and are designed to illustrate con-cepts rather than represent scale models of their subjects. This text is intended for radiology residents, cardiology fellows, nuclear medicine residents and fellows, nuclear medicine technology students, and others interested in an introduction to concepts in nuclear medicine physics and instrumentation.

Rachel A. Powsner Matthew R. Palmer

The authors would like to thank the following experts for their help with this edition: Larry Panych, PhD for his in‐depth critique and suggestions for the MRI chapter, Annick Van Den Abbeele, MD, FACR, and Kun Huang, MD, for their review and correc-tions of the chapters on radiopharmaceutical therapy and radiation biology, respectively, and Chad Smith, PhD for his review of radiation safety and dosimetry. We are grateful for the assistance of Arda Konik, PhD for his guidance on interpretation of GE PET QC images as well as Mr. Brandon Clifton and Jeanette Y. Kleier, RT (R)(N), CNMT for help with understanding Philips PET and SPECT QC images and Stephen Baker for his aid with Siemens PET QC images. In addition, Mr. Mitchell Kruzel from Nuclear Fields provided helpful information on current utility of collimator designs.
Since this edition is built upon information included in prior editions, the authors would like to thank the following individuals for their help on the third edition: Anupma Jati, MD for critiquing the CT dosimetry section of the text, Gary Murphy, RT, for help with CT QC questions and Kandace Craft, RTN and Chris Lindsey, FSE for information about PET‐CT. P. Satish Nair, PhD generously made comments on the dosimetry chapter. David Drum, MD answered numerous questions about radiation safety and dosimetry. J. Anthony Parker, MD was helpful on the topic of cancer induction from low‐dose ionizing radiation as well as serving as a reference for an assortment of other specific questions.

For the second edition the following individuals were most generous with information: Stephen Moore, PhD on the topic of SPECT processing including itera-tive reconstruction, Fred Fahey, DSc on PET instru-mentation, and Robert Zimmerman, MSEE on gamma camera quality control and the physics of crystal scin-tillators. In addition, Dr. Frank Masse generously reviewed the material on radiation accidents and Mark Walsh, CHP critiqued the radiation safety text.
We would also like to thank the following indi-viduals for their help in reviewing portions of the first edition during its preparation: David Rockwell, MD, Maura Dineen‐Burton, CNMT, Dipa Patel, MD, Alfonse Taghian, MD, Hernan Jara, PhD, Susan Gussenhoven, PhD, John Shaw, MS, Michael Squillante, PhD, Kevin Buckley, CHP, Jayne Caruso, Victor Lee, MD, Toby Wroblicka, MD, Dan Winder, MD, Dennis Atkinson, MD, and Inna Gazit, MD. Thanks to Peter Shomphe, ARRT, CNMT, Bob Dann, PhD, and Laura Partriquin, MD for wading through the manuscript in its entirety. We greatly appreci-ate the patience shown at that time by Robert Zimmerman, MSEE, Kevin Buckley, CHP, John Widman, PhD, CHP, Peter Waer, PhD, Stephen Moore, PhD, Bill Worstell, PhD, and Hernan Jara, PhD while answering our numerous questions. Thanks to Delia Edwards, Milda Pitter, and Paul Guidone, MD for taking time to pose as models. The authors would also like to thank Rhoda M. Powsner, MD for her assistance in reviewing sections of the text and for proofreading the review questions.