Breast Cancer Imaging Studies by Monte Carlo Simulation with Clear-PEM

Abstract

Positron Emission Mammography (PEM) is a functional imaging technique for breast cancer detection. The development of dedicated systems with high sensitivity and spatial resolution, are a valuable resource for early breast cancer diagnosis and onset of an efficient therapy. In this paper, we report on the performance indicators of the Clear-PEM imaging system. In particular, we evaluate, the detection sensitivity, system count rates and breast lesion detection by means of Monte Carlo simulation.

Positron Emission Mammography

“…Those events that are within the selected energy window are validated, their final coordinates being used to define the LORs that are stored in a listmode file [53]. Images are reconstructed using 3D statistical iterative algorithms or 2D algebraic techniques [55][56][57]. Phantom studies showed that the scanner is suitable for milimetric tumor detection; Derenzo phantom studies showed that lesions up to 2 mm in diameter can be clearly seen; a gelatin breast phantom indicated that lesions up to 3 mm in diameter can be detected.…”

Clear-PEM: A PET imaging system dedicated to breast cancer diagnostics

“…For these tasks a simulation framework has been implemented which is partitioned into three modules [8]. The two first modules were developed on the Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit.…”