Performance measurements of a pixelated NaI(Tl) PET scanner

Author

Perkins, A.E. ; Muehllehner, G. ; Surti, S. ; Karp, J.S.

Author_Institution

Philips Med. Syst., Philadelphia, PA, USA

Volume

2

fYear

2002

fDate

10-16 Nov. 2002

Firstpage

885

Abstract

A prototype PET scanner for whole body imaging with 4 mm × 4 mm × 30 mm NaI(Tl) crystals and Anger-logic readout has been built and tested. The scanner is composed of 36,540 NaI(Tl) pixels which are coupled to an optically continuous lightguide and a hexagonal closed packed array of 39 mm photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). The scanner is designed with a crystal-to-crystal diameter of 89 cm and an axial field of view (AFOV) of 25 cm. The main goals of this study are (1) to overcome the count-rate limitation of the continuous NaI(Tl) scanner (CPET), (2) to improve the spatial resolution and image contrast by using small pixels, and (3) to eliminate the relatively large data gaps between the detectors in the continuous NaI(Tl) scanner.

Keywords

photomultipliers; position sensitive particle detectors; positron emission tomography; solid scintillation detectors; 30 mm; 4 mm; 89 cm; Anger-logic readout; NaI:Tl; performance measurements; photomultiplier tubes; pixelated NaI(Tl) PET scanner; small pixels; whole body imaging; Crystals; Measurement; Optical arrays; Optical coupling; Photomultipliers; Positron emission tomography; Prototypes; Testing; Whole body imaging; Whole-body PET;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2002 IEEE

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7636-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2002.1239466

Filename

1239466