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Optimization of a parallel hole collimator/CdZnTe gamma‐camera architecture for scintimammography
Author(s) -
Robert Charlotte,
Montémont Guillaume,
Rebuffel Véronique,
Verger Loïck,
Buvat Irène
Publication year - 2011
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 - 10.1118/1.3560423
Subject(s) - collimator , detective quantum efficiency , detector , optics , image resolution , scintimammography , physics , gamma camera , collimated light , computer science , mammography , image quality , artificial intelligence , image (mathematics) , medicine , laser , cancer , breast cancer
Purpose: Small field‐of‐view CdZnTe (CZT) gamma cameras are increasingly studied for breast lesion detection to complement mammography or ultrasonographic findings. However, in classical collimation configurations, they remain limited by the trade‐off between spatial resolution and sensitivity. The HiSens architecture was proposed to overcome these limitations. Using an accurate 3D localization of the interactions inside the detector, this architecture leads to a gain in sensitivity without loss in spatial resolution. In this article, the relevance of the HiSens architecture for planar scintimammography is studied.Methods: A detective quantum efficiency (DQE) computation method is developed and used to optimize the dimensioning of a parallel hole collimator dedicated to scintimammography. Based on the DQE curves, the impact of the collimator‐to‐detector distance is studied. Two algorithms are proposed to combine data acquired with different collimator‐to‐detector distances.Results: It is shown that CZT detector virtual pixelization increases system sensitivity by 3.3 while preserving a standard LEHR spatial resolution. The introduction of a gap between the CZT detector and the collimator is useful to modulate the DQE curve shape. The combination of data acquired using different gaps in the image formation process leads to enhanced restoration of the frequency content of the images, resulting in image contrast and spatial resolution improvements.Conclusions: Acquisition duration or injected activity could be markedly reduced if the HiSens architecture with an appropriate collimator‐detector gap were used.