Molecular imaging by single-photon emission

In vivo imaging of pharmaceuticals labeled with radionuclides has proven to be a powerful tool in human subjects. The same imaging methods have often been applied to small animal but usually only within the nuclear medicine (NM) community, and usually only to evaluate the efficacy of new radiopharmaceuticals. We have built a compact mini gamma camera, a pixellated array of NaI(Tl) crystals coupled to 3′′ R2486 Hamamatsu Position Sensitive PMT; in combination with a pinhole collimator, which allows for high resolution in vivo SPECT imaging. Calculations show that reasonable counting rates are possible. The system has been tested and preliminary measurements on mice have been done. The performances of the camera are in the expectations. Improvements will be done both on the collimation technique and on the detector. Simulations have been performed to study a coded aperture collimator. The results show that the efficiency can be greatly improved without sacrificing the spatial resolution. A dedicated mask has been designed and will be used soon.