Superpett 3000 time-of-flight PET tomograph: optimization of factors affecting quantitation

In positron-emission tomography (PET), to certify that the observed radioactivity in the organ of interest represents the true underlying radioactivity concentration, an experimental/theoretical treatment of factors such as scatter, randoms, reconstruction parameters, recovery coefficients and the cross-calibration procedure is required. Dual isotope experiments used to check the overall tomograph performance are described. It is found that the inclusion of a real-time calibration tube standard in the tomograph field-of-view during scanning compensates for any temporal variation in the machine sensitivity and provides a built-in dead time correction. Reconstruction parameters and recovery coefficients were optimized through phantom experiments. It is shown that results similar to other head and whole body scanners have been achieved