Development of a Comprehensive Software Application for Calculations in Nuclear Medicine and Radiopharmacy

Abstract

In the daily practice of in-hospital or centralized radiopharmacies, there is a need to perform reliable numeric calculations. Furthermore, several nuclear medicine diagnostic tests also involve carrying out calculations. In both cases, these calculations are sometimes complex or tedious and prone to error. We report the development of a computer software program that performs a comprehensive range of calculations required in radiopharmacy and nuclear medicine diagnostic tests. Methods: This software was developed and compiled in the Visual Basic programming language using algorithms and methods reflected in the scientific literature. Results: We developed 2 versions of the software program, which we call Nucleolab. It automatically performs calculations relating to radiopharmacy practice as well as 9 diagnostic nuclear medicine tests. The 0.1 version performs all these calculations, and the 1.2 version also has a database that enables the user to save and recover diagnostic test results and issue custom reports. The software can be downloaded at www.radiofarmacia.org/ nucleolab-english.Conclusion: To our knowledge, ours is the first attempt to develop a comprehensive software application that facilitates calculations in nuclear medicine and radiopharmacy, reducing errors and improving efficiency and accuracy.Key Words: nuclear medicine software; radiopharmacy software; pediatric dosage of radiopharmaceuticals; 99m Tc generator; red cell volume; plasma volume; red cell kinetic; platelet kinetic; renal plasma flow; glomerular filtration rate Cal culations-such as the appropriate pediatric dose of radiopharmaceuticals or the theoretic activity of a 99m Tc generator at any specified time point-are required in radiopharmacy but can be cumbersome and prone to error. There are also several diagnostic techniques in nuclear medicine, such as studies of red cell and platelet kinetics, blood volume, or renal function, that require complex or time-consuming calculations. All such calculations can be performed using scientific calculators or spreadsheets. The purpose of this work was to develop a software application, which we call Nucleolab, to perform the most important calculations relating to the practice of radiopharmacy and several important diagnostic techniques of nuclear medicine. In addition, we set out to link this software with a database to store test data and results and to enable the issuance of custom reports of these tests at any time. MATERIALS AND METHODSThe first stage in the design of the application was the analysis, in our respective radiopharmacies and nuclear medicine departments, of those processes involving calculations that are of some complexity or are time-consuming. After identifying these processes, we reviewed the scientific literature to find the best ways to perform the calculations. When multiple formulas were described, we tried to choose those most widely agreed upon. These algorithms and methods were used to program the calculations in the software. The computer application was develop...

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