Dose heterogeneity in transarterial radioembolization after fractional administration of holmium microspheres: a study in ex vivo perfused human tumour-bearing livers under MRI

An important but often overlooked aspect in transarterial radioembolization (TARE) is dose heterogeneity, typically occurring at a scale below the resolution of nuclear imaging. Dose heterogeneity can be evaluated using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at a spatial resolution surpassing the average beta particle range (i.e. voxel size <2.2 mm) when holmium microspheres are employed. This study investigates dose heterogeneity in liver tumours and non-tumorous target liver (NTTL) using an experimental setup of ex vivo perfused human tumour-bearing livers, and validates the findings with data from TARE-treated patients.
The collection contains:
Folder 'MATLAB_scripts':
- HeterogeneityAnalysis.m; MATLAB script to analyse the dose maps.
- FluorescenceMicroscopyAnalysis.m; MATLAB script to analyse the fluorescence microscopy images.
- CalculateMicrosphereConcentration.m; MATLAB script to calculate the microsphere concentration (i.e. the amount of microspheres in mg per ml of tissue volume) from the activity concentration maps.
Folder 'Raw_data':
1. Experiment protocol;
2. Imaging data:
a) MRI data;
b) Dose maps;
c) Segmentations;
d) Fluorescence microscopy data;
3. Results:
a) HeterogeneityAnalysis;
b) FluorescenceMicroscopyAnalysis.
Used software: Q-suite (version 2.2, Quirem Medical B.V., Deventer, The Netherlands), Matlab R2023b (MathWorks, Natick, Massachusetts, USA).