MicroPET II: an ultra-high resolution small animal PET system

Tai, Yuan‐Chuan; Chatziioannou, Arion F.; Silverman, Robert W.; Meadors, K.; Siegel, Stefan; Newport, D.F.; Yang, Yongfeng; Stickel, Jennifer; Cherry, Simon R.

doi:10.1109/nssmic.2002.1239683

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…perpendicular to the direction of the incident photons. The total thickness of this detector would provide roughly the same stopping power as the LSO detectors used in the microPET II scanner (Tai et al 2003). If no events are rejected through energy thresholding, simulations indicate that the detector will have an efficiency of 61%.…”

Section: Detector Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is not at all clear whether we are close to reaching the highest resolution possible for small animal PET. Most current systems are based on scintillators with individual detector elements as small as 0.8 to 1 mm in cross section (Tai et al 2003, Correia et al 1999, Miyaoka et al 2001. These detectors have reported resolutions ranging from 0.8 to 1.25 mm which can be directly related to the size of the detector elements with additional effects due to light production and collection, inter-crystal scatter and electronic multiplexing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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High-resolution PET detector design: modelling components of intrinsic spatial resolution

2004

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The development of dedicated small animal PET (positron emission tomography) scanners has led to significantly higher spatial resolution and comparable sensitivity to clinical scanners. However, it is not clear whether we are approaching the fundamental limit of spatial resolution. This work aims to understand what is currently limiting spatial resolution during data formation and collection and how to apply that knowledge to obtain the best possible resolution for small animal PET without sacrificing sensitivity. Monte Carlo simulations were performed of the interactions of a 511 keV photon in a variety of detector materials to evaluate the modulation transfer function of the materials. Positron range, non-colinearity and pixel size were modelled to determine the contribution of additional components of data formation and collection on the complete modulation transfer function of a PET system. These simulations are shown to predict the intrinsic detector resolution of current high resolution systems very well. They also show that current detectors are not limited by inter-crystal scatter. An intrinsic resolution of 0.5 mm can be achieved, but would require a detector with a pixel size of around 250 µm that can be read out unambiguously. It is shown that a range of different detector materials, both scintillators and semiconductors, can be used in these high-resolution detectors. While this design relies on thin (∼3 mm) pieces of material, stacks of the material are shown to simultaneously provide spatial resolution near 0.5 mm and 60% efficiency. This work has shown that detectors with significantly better resolution and sensitivity can be developed for small animal PET applications.

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Section: Detector Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-resolution PET detector design: modelling components of intrinsic spatial resolution

2004

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“…Small animal positron emission tomography (PET) scanners have been developed and successfully used in molecular imaging applications over the last ten years (Bloomfield et al 1997, Cherry et al 1997, Chatziioannou et al 1999, Del Guerra et al 1998, Jeavons et al 1999, Knoess et al 2003, Lecomte et al 1996, Watanabe et al 1997, Ziegler et al 2001. Recently, great efforts have been made to develop small animal PET scanners with higher spatial resolution and higher sensitivity (Correia et al 1999, Miyaoka et al 2001, Huber and Moses, 1999, Rouze et al 2004, Tai et al 2003, 2005, Yang et al 2004. To fulfil the requirements of high efficiency and high resolution simultaneously suggests the need for long and very narrow scintillation crystals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Depth of interaction resolution measurements for a high resolution PET detector using position sensitive avalanche photodiodes

et al. 2006

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We explore dual-ended read out of LSO arrays with two position sensitive avalanche photodiodes (PSAPDs) as a high resolution, high efficiency depth-encoding detector for PET applications. Flood histograms, energy resolution and depth of interaction (DOI) resolution were measured for unpolished LSO arrays with individual crystal sizes of 1.0, 1.3 and 1.5 mm, and for a polished LSO array with 1.3 mm pixels. The thickness of the crystal arrays was 20 mm. Good flood histograms were obtained for all four arrays, and crystals in all four arrays can be clearly resolved. Although the amplitude of each PSAPD signal decreases as the interaction depth moves further from the PSAPD, the sum of the two PSAPD signals is essentially constant with irradiation depth for all four arrays. The energy resolutions were similar for all four arrays, ranging from 14.7% to 15.4%. A DOI resolution of 3-4 mm (including the width of the irradiation band which is approximately 2 mm) was obtained for all the unpolished arrays. The best DOI resolution was achieved with the unpolished 1 mm array (average 3.5 mm). The DOI resolution for the 1.3 mm and 1.5 mm unpolished arrays was 3.7 and 4.0 mm respectively. For the polished array, the DOI resolution was only 16.5 mm. Summing the DOI profiles across all crystals for the 1 mm array only degraded the DOI resolution from 3.5 mm to 3.9 mm, indicating that it may not be necessary to calibrate the DOI response separately for each crystal within an array. The DOI response of individual crystals in the array confirms this finding. These results provide a detailed characterization of the DOI response of these PSAPD-based PET detectors which will be important in the design and calibration of a PET scanner making use of this detector approach.

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“…While recently developed dedicated small animal positron emission tomography (PET) systems [1][2] [3] were primarily developed with the aim of achiving a high spatial resolution of about ~1.5mm in the center, it has become clear that it is equally important not to sacrifice the sensitivity since the specific activity of the radiotracers used may be limited. With smaller diameter tomographs, an increasing crystal thickness results in parallax errors that degrade image resolution when getting away from the axial center.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ClearPET. Neuro scanner: A dedicated LSO/LuYAP phoswich small animal PET scanner

Ziemons

Achten²,

Auffray³

et al.

IEEE Symposium Conference Record Nuclear Science 2004.

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The ClearPET initiative is a project being undertaken by working groups of the Crystal Clear Collaboration (CCC). Its aim is to develop a second-generation high performance small animal positron emission tomograph. The ClearPET camera is expected to provide both high sensitivity and high spatial resolution. It uses a phoswich arranging combining two types of lutetium-based scintillator materials: LSO and LuYAP:Ce. Based on the same detector modules different designs from each collaboration partner are realized for their associated medical institutes. Each dedicated version is expressed by the name ClearPET plus an extension.The ClearPET Neuro scanner is a dedicated small animal scanner to allow measurements of signal transduction in nonhuman primates under physiological conditions. This scanner is build by working groups of the Research Center Jülich (FZJ). The gantry allows rotation of the detector modules as well as tilting by 90 degrees to measure non-human primates in an upright sitting position. The opening diameter of the ring is variable between 130mm and 300mm, the axial detector length is 110mm.

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MicroPET II: an ultra-high resolution small animal PET system

Cited by 13 publications

References 16 publications

High-resolution PET detector design: modelling components of intrinsic spatial resolution

High-resolution PET detector design: modelling components of intrinsic spatial resolution

Depth of interaction resolution measurements for a high resolution PET detector using position sensitive avalanche photodiodes

The ClearPET. Neuro scanner: A dedicated LSO/LuYAP phoswich small animal PET scanner

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