Radiotheranostics: A Primer for Medical Physicists II

Radiotheranostics – A Primer for Medical Physicists II: Radiochemistry, Radiobiology, Dosimetry, Safety, Economics, and AI expands upon the radiotheranostic topics in cancer care covered in Volume I, which includes cancer biology, clinical applications, radionuclide production, source calibration, imaging instrumentation, and staff education, training, and competencies. Building on these foundational elements, Volume II offers an in-depth coverage of radiopharmaceutical preparation and radiolabeling strategies. It presents new insights into radiation biology, including studies on human and animal radiation embryology. The dosimetry section addresses alpha-, beta-, and Auger-emitting radionuclides and explores the therapeutic potential of positrons. It emphasizes biokinetic modeling, standardized and image-based dosimetry procedures, and the quantification of uncertainties in dose calculations. Essential safety topics are also thoroughly examined, including radiation shielding, facility design, the management of deceased radiotheranostic patients, and current regulatory requirements. The volume concludes with forward-looking chapters on the economics of theranostics and the transformative role of artificial intelligence in enhancing precision medicine.

The chapters are designed to equip medical physicists with the tools necessary to accurately estimate and document individual patient dosimetry and demonstrate the clinical value of dose calculations in improving cancer outcomes and survival rates.

The book is intended for academic and practicing clinical medical and health physicists with a basic knowledge of nuclear medicine. Although not structured as a textbook, medical physicists in nuclear medicine physics training will also find the book helpful.

Key Features:

Covers everything medical and health physicists need to know in one book.

The text is rigorous yet easily understandable to physics majors.

References are extensive so that readers can delve deeper into the subject.

Author Biography

Cari (Caridad) Borrás is a medical physicist in Washington DC, where she works as an international consultant and lecturer, and has an adjunct faculty position at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She holds a Doctor of Science (Physics) degree from the Universitat de Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The research for her doctoral thesis –on the dosimetry and the radiation effects of Astatine-211 on the development of the rat embryo– was performed at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia PA, USA, under a Fulbright scholarship (1966-1973). She is certified in Radiological Physics by the American Board of Radiology (ABR) and in Medical Health Physics by the American Board of Medical Physics and keeps both certifications current. She worked as a radiological physicist at the West Coast Cancer Foundation in San Francisco CA (1974-1988), directed the Radiological Health Program of the Pan American / World Health Organization in Washington DC (1988-2003), joined as Senior Scientist and Director of Special Programs the Institute for Radiological Image
Sciences, Inc. in Frederick MD (2003-2004), and was a Visiting Professor at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, where she supervised graduated students in medical radiation dosimetry (2009-2011). She is a member of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), American College of Radiology (ACR), Health Physics Society (HPS), Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, and the Spanish Medical Physics (SEFM) and Radiation Protection (SEPR) Societies. She has served on numerous committees of these societies as well as the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP), where she chaired the Science Committee (2000-2009); the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine
(IUPESM), where she co-chaired/chaired the Health Technology Task Group (2009-2015), and the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics, where she currently is a member of the Scientific Committee. She has lectured in more than 300 courses/congresses, many of which she organized; authored around 100 publications, among them five book chapters, and has edited two books. She is a Fellow of ACR, AAPM, IOMP, HPS and IUPESM, and has been given awards by SEFM, AAPM, IOMP, Latin American Medical Physics Association, American College of Clinical Engineering, ACR and ABR.