Measurement of radiation hardness of PET components

1N-BEAM PET has given valuable feedback on treatment quality over the 11 years of operation time between 1997 and 2008 of the heavy ion treatment facility at the Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung (GSI) Darmstadt. Based on this technical expertise a next generation of in-beam PET scanners will be developed. An experiment addressing the question whether the detectors and electronic components used in state-of-the-art PET-systems are suitable regarding radiation hardness for configuring a future in-beam PET scanner was performed at the medical beam line of GSI. The detectors used in conventional current PET scanners can be utilized to configure a new in-beam PET scanner for ion therapy units. They have been exposed to a secondary particle fluence equivalent up to 13 years of usage in an in-beam PET scanner. No damage was found analyzing the detectors and the electronics after the experiment.