Use of bremsstrahlung radiation to identify hidden weak ?? sources: feasibility and possible use in radio-guided surgery
The recent interest in ?? radionuclides for radio-guided surgery derives from the feature of the ? radiation to release energy in few millimeters of tissue. Such feature can be used to locate residual tumors with a probe located in its immediate vicinity, determining the resection margins with an accuracy of millimeters. The drawback of this technique is that it does not allow to identify tumors hidden in more than few mm of tissue. Conversely, the bremsstrahlung X-rays emitted by the interaction of the ?? radiation with the nuclei of the tissue are relatively penetrating.