Physical characteristics of the ECAT 953B/31: a new high resolution brain positron tomograph

A high spatial resolution brain positron tomograph, the ECAT 953B/31, is presented. The machine consists of two 76.5 cm diameter rings (patient port diameter: 36 cm) made of 24 8×8 BGO detector blocks each, each block being coupled to four 1 in² Hammamatsu phototubes. The machine has 15 9 cm×1 mm motorized removable septa, which allows reconstruction of 31 slices 3.375 mm apart. The transaxial resolution (FWHM) in the reconstructed image (with wobbling) is 4.5 mm at center, 5.2 mm (tangential) and 5.6 mm at 10 cm from center. With septa out of the field of view (FOV), the axial resolution degrades to 5.5 mm a center and 6.3 mm at 10 cm from center. At 1 μCi/cc with a 250 keV threshold and a 12 ns coincidence window, the sensitivity is 146100 true events, the ratio of randoms to trues is 0.10, the scatter fraction is 17% and the dead-time losses are 30%. With septa out of the FOV, the sensitivity is increased by a factor 3.6, while the scatter fraction reaches 0.9. Images obtained with ¹⁸ F-DG and H₂¹⁵O in human brains and ¹⁸ F-DOPA in a baboon brain demonstrate that the ECAT 953B/31 will be suitable for high resolution and for low count rate brain studies