Isolated limb perfusion is a surgical procedure used for treating cancer patients
with melanoma or sarcoma isolated to a single limb. It is used as an alternative
to limb amputation or other mutilating operations. Patient’s limb is disconnected
from systemic bloodstream and connected to its own isolated one in which radioactive
tracer and high dosage of medication are injected. During procedure,
constant monitoring of fluid leakage from isolated limb to systemic bloodstream
is important for patient’s safety. In case leakage exceeds safe threshold, the procedure
is stopped. Thesis addresses a portable prototype scintillation detector for
measuring radioactivity which indirectly measures leakage during isolated limb
perfusion. Detector is based on scintillator, photomultiplier, multichannel analyzer
and graphic user interface. Multichannel analyzer is made with FPGA
circuit on Red Pitaya development board. The main motive for work was to
build a small and portable detector which could in future replace the one that is
currently used at the Institute of Oncology in Ljubljana.
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