PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Travis M. Shaffer
AU  - Charles Michael Drain
AU  - Jan Grimm
TI  - Optical Imaging of Ionizing Radiation from Clinical Sources
AID  - 10.2967/jnumed.116.178624
DP  - 2016 Nov 01
TA  - Journal of Nuclear Medicine
PG  - 1661--1666
VI  - 57
IP  - 11
4099  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/57/11/1661.short
4100  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/57/11/1661.full
SO  - J Nucl Med2016 Nov 01; 57
AB  - Nuclear medicine uses ionizing radiation for both in vivo diagnosis and therapy. Ionizing radiation comes from a variety of sources, including x-rays, beam therapy, brachytherapy, and various injected radionuclides. Although PET and SPECT remain clinical mainstays, optical readouts of ionizing radiation offer numerous benefits and complement these standard techniques. Furthermore, for ionizing radiation sources that cannot be imaged using these standard techniques, optical imaging offers a unique imaging alternative. This article reviews optical imaging of both radionuclide- and beam-based ionizing radiation from high-energy photons and charged particles through mechanisms including radioluminescence, Cerenkov luminescence, and scintillation. Therapeutically, these visible photons have been combined with photodynamic therapeutic agents preclinically for increasing therapeutic response at depths difficult to reach with external light sources. Last, new microscopy methods that allow single-cell optical imaging of radionuclides are reviewed.