ORIGINAL PAPER Production of radioactive phantoms using a standard inkjet printer and the public domain multi-printing code GENIA R.Scafe` a,b, *, P. Auer c , P. Bennati b,d , L. La Porta c , F. Pisacane c , M.N. Cinti a,b , R. Pellegrini a,b , G. De Vincentis e , G. Conte f , R. Pani a,b a Dept. of Molecular Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Viale Regina Elena 324, 00161 Rome, Italy b INFN-Roma I, Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy c Casaccia Research Centre, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), 00123 S. Maria di Galeria, Rome, Italy d EDEMOM, Ph.D. School of Microelectronics, Roma Tre University, Via della Vasca Navale 84, 00146 Rome, Italy e Dept. of Radiology, Oncology and Anatomy-pathology Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Viale Regina Elena 324, 00161 Rome, Italy f Dept. of Electronic Engineering, Roma Tre University, Via della Vasca Navale 84, 00146 Rome, Italy Received 8 February 2010; received in revised form 2 September 2010; accepted 7 October 2010 Available online 10 November 2010 KEYWORDS Surface source; Inkjet printing; Multi-printing; Radionuclide imaging Abstract The public domain code GENIA, based on multi-printing method for producing surface sources with appropriate radioactivity, is described. The conventional technique, running on standard inkjet printer with radio-marked ink filling, is improved by repeating elementary printing commands in the same band. Well outlined sources with adjustable radio- activity can be obtained without refilling. The intrinsic limitation of printable radioactivity, de- pending on the value available at nozzles at printing time, was overcome. In addition the method permits the accurate calibration of the amount of activity released onto the paper. ª 2010 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Since the introduction of inkjet printing with radioactive ink [1], many authors described the technique for preparing surface sources to be mainly used either as phantoms for radionuclide imaging [2e5] or as patterns for quality control [6e8]. All cited papers refer to heterogeneous or uniform surface sources set up by standard image editors * Corresponding author. Dept. of Molecular Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Viale Regina Elena 324, 00161 Rome, Italy. Tel./fax: þ3906 4991 8277. E-mail address: raffaele.scafe@uniroma1.it (R. Scafe `). available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: http://intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/ejmp Physica Medica (2011) 27, 209e223 1120-1797/$ - see front matter ª 2010 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ejmp.2010.10.006