Estimation and implications of random errors in whole-body dosimetry for targeted radionuclide therapy

For targeted radionuclide therapy, the level of activity to be administered is often determined from whole-body dosimetry performed on a pre-therapy tracer study. The largest potential source of error in this method is due to inconsistent or inaccurate activity retention measurements. The main aim of this study was to develop a simple method to quantify the uncertainty in the absorbed dose due to these inaccuracies. A secondary aim was to assess the effect of error propagation from the results of the tracer study to predictive absorbed dose estimates for the therapy as a result of using different radionuclides for each. Standard error analysis was applied to the MIRD schema for absorbed dose calculations. An equation was derived to describe the uncertainty in the absorbed dose estimate due solely to random errors in activity-time data, requiring only these data as input. Two illustrative examples are given. It is also shown that any errors present in the dosimetry calculations following the tracer study will propagate to errors in predictions made for the therapy study according to the ratio of the respective effective half-lives. If the therapy isotope has a much longer physical half-life than the tracer isotope (as is the case, for example, when using 123I as a tracer for 131I therapy) the propagation of errors can be significant. The equations derived provide a simple means to estimate two potentially large sources of error in whole-body absorbed dose calculations.