Field of application

It is intended to help surgeon localize and remove tumours, metastases and/or sentinel lymph-nodes by measuring on spot the relative local concentrations of radiopharmaceutical previously administered to the patient. RadPointer is a tool complementary to standard radio-diagnostic equipment, such as positron emission tomography -PET or single photon emission tomography -SPECT and it serves as a link between a scan image and reality picture and allows identification of previously detected malignancies, which cannot be visually localized.

RadPointer-Beta is primarily intended for use in combination with PET to localize tumour and determine resection margins in-vivo and ex-vivo. It is sensitive only to positrons, which have very short range in tissue (1-5 mm, depending on the type of positron-emitting isotope), therefore has a very thin (and relatively fragile) entrance window.

The main parts of the RadPointer-Beta are:

• Front window: very thin and relatively fragile, light- and water-proof, transparent for beta-particles.
• Probe housing: it consists of plastic handle (electronics and battery container) with back cap, which serves also as a rotation ON-OFF switch, and a stainless steel tube (detector container).

RadPointer-Gamma has exactly the same construction, with the exception of the front tip (a different layout of the detector assembly and additional tungsten collimator for elimination of scattered background). It has a stainless steel front window, therefore is more robust mechanically.

The main parts of RadPointer-Gamma  are:

• Collimator Tip: it contains the detector and a tungsten collimator inside stainless steel cup; the collimator is an important part of the device, defining its spatial resolution. Stainless steel tube connects the TIP with the housing of the device.
• Probe housing: it consists of plastic handle (electronics and battery container) and back cup, which serves also as a rotation on-off switch.