JOÃO AUGUSTO MOURA

JOÃO AUGUSTO MOURA

(Fonte: Lattes)

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Possui graduação em Tecnologia em saúde pela Faculdade de Tecnologia de Sorocaba (2005). Mestrado em Tecnologia Nuclear pela Universidade de São Paulo (2009). Doutorado em Tecnologia Nuclear pela Universidade de São Paulo (2015). Tem experiência na área de Tecnologia Nuclear, com ênfase em produção de fontes para radioterapia. Atualmente trabalha em pesquisa e desenvolvimento no Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares (IPEN/CNEN-SP). (Texto extraído do Currículo Lattes em 8 maio 2023)

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Nationalization of brachytherapy radioactive sources in Brazil and the importance of IAEA cooperation
2023 - ROSTELATO, MARIA E.C.M.; FEHER, ANSELMO; ZEITUNI, CARLOS A.; ROSERO, WILMMER A.A.; SOUZA, CARLA D. de; MOURA, JOÃO A.
Brazil has a cancer incidence of about 625,000 cases a year. It is a public health problem, demanding constant efforts to deliver for patients the most efficient treatment modalities, improving their life expectancy and quality. Brachytherapy is a type of Radiotherapy where the radioactive source is placed close to or inside the tumor. The main advantage of the technique is to deliver the maximum dose in the target, saving healthy tissues. In Brazil, Our group had the objective of producing sources nationally, diminishing treatment costs, enabling the treatment to more patients. Some of our projects are developed in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency-IAEA by technical cooperation projects. The IAEA participation is very important to provide technological transfer through scientific visits, expert missions, and contacts with more advanced centers. The financial support is also important, allowing us to buy the necessary equipment to make these cancer treatment sources production feasible in Brazil. Our team has received training through fellowships. We received some experts and organized several workshops to propagate the Brachytherapy technique at national and Latin American level. For producing new sources, five major areas must be considered: 1) source production: nuclear activation and/or radiochemical reaction; 2) welding; 3) quality control: leakage tests; 4) dosimetry and metrology; 5) operational procedures; 6) validation studies. To perform all steps, a multidisciplinary team works together to overcome difficulties. Our major projects are: Iridium-192 pellets: In Brazil there are 150 afterloading machines with pellets that replacement every 4 months (about 450 Iridium-192 sources a year). Our new production line, with the support of IAEA, is in progress, with the hot-cell being installed in a brand-new facility. Iridium-192 wires: In production since 1997, also supported by IAEA. The wire is activated at IPEN’s IEA-R1 reactor for 30 hours with 5x1013 n/cm-2.s-1 neutron flux resulting in 7.1 GBq (192 mCi) maximum activity. Iridium-192 seed: New seed for ophthalmic cancer treatment. The core presented 90% activity homogeneity. We are making the experimental dosimetry and Monte Carlo simulation. Iodine-125 seeds: Largely used in low dose brachytherapy. I-125 binding yield achieved with our new reaction was 90%; Laser welding presented 70% efficiency. Approved in all leakage tests. Our Iodine-125 seeds laboratory production is 90% ready. Other ongoing projects: polymeric Phosphorus-32 source for spinal cancer treatment, Gold-198 nanoparticles for prostate, breast, and liver cancer treatment, Iodine-125 seed as markers for non-palpable cancers, and dosimetry calculations for all new sources. All the projects are advancing, despite national funding difficulties. Withing those, several mSc, Phd, and Post-doc are getting their degrees. We will continue to develop new products hoping to help the Brazilian population fight against cancer. The support of IAEA has proven to be of the utmost importance for these projects not only in direct funding, but in providing knowledge to our team, the possibility to share information with the scientific community, and to form the next generation of scientists.
Challenges in iodine-125 sources production for cancer treatment
2023 - FEHER, ANSELMO; BAPTISTA, TATYANA S.; ZEITUNI, CARLOS A.; ROSTELATO, MARIA E.C.M.; MOURA, JOÃO A.
There is a great challenge the implantation on assurance quality system in the brachytherapy sources production. It involves tofulfill the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) requirements, involving the process validation and of all supporting activities such as cleaning and sanitization. The purpose of this work was to execute a process validation in the iodine-125 seeds production on Radiation Technology Center located at IPEN- Brazil. Besides this, the sanitization was to evaluate the effectiveness of different surface cleaning products, determining the best to reduce radiological contamination to acceptable levels during the sources production, according to legislation. The fabrication process was performed three times for evaluation. The parameters evaluated in this study were: the source welding efficiency and the leakage tests results (immersion test). The welding efficiency doesn’t have an established parameter, since is visually evaluated by the operator, and the leakage detection has to be under 5 nCi / 185 Bq, accordingly with the ISO 9978. In the relation of sanitization, it was established a cleaning program for three production lots of iodine 125 seeds using three types of sanitizers: Lot 1 with extran 1/1 (v/v), Lot 2 with hydrogen peroxide 6% and Lot 3 with sodium hydroxide 1M. Each lots contained seven iodine 125 seeds and was immersed in the sanitizer for 1 hour and then two washes with distilled water. An activity detected in each lots does not exceed 0,2 kBq (˭5nCi). The observed values on process validation were: 75% welding efficiency and 32% leakage detection. Although established values for the global efficiency aren’t available in the literature, the results showed high consistency and acceptable percentages, especially when other similar manufacturing processes are used in comparison (average 85-70% found in the literature for other similar metallic structures). According to results of sanitization, the best choice for remove de surface contamination was peroxide hydrogen. Further testing should ensure the sanitizer's choice is based not only on the removal of surface contamination, but also this sanitizer does not leave residues requiring further rinsing with distilled water. Those values will be important data when drafting the validation document and to follow the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs).
How to select a dosimeter?
2023 - MEDEIROS, ILCA M.A.M.; SILVA, ANA C.K. de S.; TALACIMON, CRISTHIAN F.; MOURA, JOAO A.; TEODORO, LARA E.H.; RIGO, MARIA E.Z.; RODRIGUES, PRISCILA S.; ROSERO, WILMMER A.A.; ROSTELATO, MARIA E.C.M.; ZEITUNI, CARLOS A.
A proposal of process validation in the implementation of Good Manufacturing Practices in brachytherapy sources production
2021 - BAPTISTA, TATYANA S.; FEHER, ANSELMO; RODRIGUES, BRUNA T.; ZEITUNI, CARLOS A.; MOURA, JOÃO A.; ROSTELATO, MARIA E.C.M.
New laboratories for brachytherapy sources production are being implemented in our facility at IPEN, in São Paulo. A great challenge implementing a production laboratory is to comply with the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), which involves process validation and all supporting activities such as cleaning and sanitization. Much more than compliance with regulatory guidelines, required for certification and inspections, a validation builds large process knowledge, provides possibilities for optimization and improvement, increasing the degree of maturity of all people involved and the quality system. The process validation results in a document that certifies that any procedure, process, equipment, material, operation, or system leads to the expected results. This work focused on the new laboratory, been assembled to produce small iodine-125 seeds. The process validation was performed three times for evaluation. The parameters evaluated in this study were: the source welding efficiency and the leakage tests results (immersion test). The welding efficiency does not have an established parameter, since is visually evaluated by the operator, and the leakage detection must be under 5 nCi / 185 Bq, accordingly with the ISO 9978. We observed values were average 79-87% production efficiency and leakage tests were under 5 nCi/seed. Although established values for the global efficiency aren’t available in the literature, the results showed high consistency and acceptable percentages, especially when other similar manufacturing processes are used in comparison (average 85-70% found in the literature for other similar metallic structures). Those values will be important data when drafting the validation document and to follow the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs).
Gamma spectrometry of iodine-125 produced in IEA-R1 nuclear reactor, using HPGe detector and fixation into epoxy matrix disc
2021 - COSTA, OSVALDO L. da; SOUZA, DAIANE C.B. de; CASTANHO, FABIO G.; FEHER, ANSELMO; MOURA, JOÃO A.; SOUZA, CARLA D.; OLIVEIRA, HENRIQUE B.; MADUAR, MARCELO F.; ZEITUNI, CARLOS A.; ROSTELATO, MARIA E.C.M.
Few places in the world produce iodine-125. In Brazil, the first production was achieved by using the IEA-R1 nuclear reactor located at Nuclear and Energy Research Institute – IPEN. To verify the quality of iodine-125 produced, and the amount of contaminants such as iodine-126, cesium-134 and caesium-137 among others, iodine-125 samples were immobilized into epoxy matrix disc, with the same geometry of a barium-133 reference radioactive source, used to calibrate an HPGe detector. The HPGe detector has a thin carbon composite window, which allows measure the iodine-125 photopeaks, between 27.1 and 35.4 keV. The method employed here was successful in producing and measurement of iodine-125.
New core configuration for the fabrication of 125I radioactive sources for cancer treatment
2020 - SOUZA, CARLA D. de; ZEITUNI, CARLOS A.; FEHER, ANSELMO; MOURA, JOÃO A.; COSTA, OSVALDO L. da; ANGELOCCI, LUCAS V.; ROSTELATO, MARIA E.C.M.
In order to provide prostate brachytherapy treatment for more Brazilian men, IPEN is building a laboratory for the manufacture of radioactive sources. The new methodology for the production of iodine-125 seeds with yield 71.7% ± 5.3%. Points of importance were evaluated/discussed: photo-sensibility, reaction vial type, the substitution for iodine-131, pH, and solution volume. The surface was analyzed by FTIR and EDS. At the end, a Monte Carlo-MCNP6 simulation was performed to evaluate the TG-43 parameters.