The synthesis of radioactive polymeric microspheres for spect imaging during embolization procedures

• Autor(a) principal: Carvalheira, Luciana
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear
• Tipo de documento: Artigo de conferência
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do IEN
• Texto Completo: http://carpedien.ien.gov.br:8080/handle/ien/2320
• topic: Radioactive polimeric microspheres; Embolization procedure; Nuclear medicine

Vascular embolization is an important clinical procedure, frequently used to reduce the size of a tumor, to facilitate the removal of a tumor during surgery or to define a treatment of tumor malformation. In addition, imaging is an important component for the evaluation and care of patients undergoing vascular embolization. Nowadays, during the embolization procedure, the radiologist uses the Angiography or Fluoroscopy (X-Ray images) technique to estimate devascularization, since only pathological examinations are able to show the exact location of the blockade and microspheres. SPECT imaging is widely used in Brazil and provides images of superior quality to the mentioned techniques. Therefore, radioactive polymeric microspheres can be used as radioembolization agents for SPECT imaging. This technique can improve the resolution of images and, consequently, the embolization procedure efficacy of uterine fibroids for example, by allowing the track of particles distribution in the veins and tumor, the homogeneity of this distribution and the end of the embolization procedure. In this work, we evaluate the copolymerization of 4-vinylphenol and vinyl acetate as a synthesis route for a new radioembolization agent. GPC analysis results showed that this comonomer presence improved the molar mass distribution. In addition, bulk polymerization tests and kinetic studies showed that the selected comonomer retards the reaction time, but does not decrease the conversion percentage. Indeed, this result points out the necessity of a comonomer chemical modification to improve yield results.