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Study of the performance of a novel 1 mm resolution dual‐panel PET camera design dedicated to breast cancer imaging using Monte Carlo simulation
Author(s) -
Zhang Jin,
Olcott Peter D.,
Chinn Garry,
Foudray Angela M. K.,
Levin Craig S.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.2409480
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , monte carlo method , optics , image resolution , gamma camera , physics , detector , photon , avalanche photodiode , lyso , breast imaging , attenuation , coincidence , flat panel detector , materials science , breast cancer , mammography , scintillator , medicine , statistics , mathematics , cancer , alternative medicine , pathology
We studied the performance of a dual‐panel positron emission tomography (PET) camera dedicated to breast cancer imaging using Monte Carlo simulation. The PET camera under development has two 10 × 15cm 2plates that are constructed from arrays of 1 × 1 × 3mm 3LSO crystals coupled to novel ultra‐thin ( < 200 μ m ) silicon position‐sensitive avalanche photodiodes (PSAPD). In this design the photodetectors are configured “edge‐on” with respect to incoming photons which encounter a minimum of 2 cm thick of LSO with directly measured photon interaction depth. Simulations predict that this camera will have 10 – 15 % photon sensitivity, for an 8 – 4 cm panel separation. Detector measurements show ∼ 1mm 3intrinsic spatial resolution, < 12 % energy resolution, and ∼ 2 ns coincidence time resolution. By performing simulated dual‐panel PET studies using a phantom comprising active breast, heart, and torso tissue, count performance was studied as a function of coincident time and energy windows. We also studied visualization of hot spheres of 2.5 – 4.0 mm diameter and various locations within the simulated breast tissue for 1 × 1 × 3mm 3 , 2 × 2 × 10mm 3 , 3 × 3 × 30mm 3 , and 4 × 4 × 20mm 3LSO crystal resolutions and different panel separations. Images were reconstructed by focal plane tomography with attenuation and normalization corrections applied. Simulation results indicate that with an activity concentration ratio of tumor:breast:heart:torso of 10:1:10:1 and 30 s of acquisition time, only the dual‐plate PET camera comprising 1 × 1 × 3mm 3crystals could resolve 2.5 mm diameter spheres with an average peak‐to‐valley ratio of 1.3.