title: Novel biomedical applications of Cerenkov radiation and radioluminescence imaging.
abstract: The main goals of this review is to provide an up-to-date account of the different uses of Cerenkov radiation (CR) and radioluminescence imaging for pre-clinical small animal imaging. We will focus on new emerging applications such as the use of Cerenkov imaging for monitoring radionuclide and external radiotherapy in humans. Another novel application that will be described is the monitoring of radiochemical synthesis using microfluidic chips. Several pre-clinical aspects of CR will be discussed such as the development of 3D reconstruction methods for Cerenkov images and the use of CR as excitation source for nanoparticles or for endoscopic imaging. We will also include a discussion on radioluminescence imaging that is a more general method than Cerenkov imaging for the detection using optical methods of alpha and gamma emitters.
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Department, Centre for Experimental Imaging, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Via Olgettina 60, Milan 20182, Italy. Electronic address: spinelli.antonello@hsr.it.
authors.forename: Antonello E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Spinelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Strada Le Grazie 15, Verona 37134, Italy.
authors.forename: Federico
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Boschi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D060733:Electromagnetic Radiation; D006801:Humans; D061848:Optical Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D011849:Radioactive Tracers; D011868:Radioisotopes
chemical_list: D011849:Radioactive Tracers; D011868:Radioisotopes
keywords: Cerenkov imaging; In vivo small animal optical imaging; Molecular imaging