Performance Characteristics of Positologica III

Positron emission tomography

“…Early efforts to achieve transverse section images in nuclear medicine relied on iterative methods Wetzel 1971, Kuhl et al 1973), but this changed rapidly with the introduction of x-ray computed tomography and the filtered backprojection technique. This allowed a series of PET scanners to be developed at a number of academic institutions (Ter-Pogossian et al 1978, Phelps et al 1976, Burnham et al 1985, Bohm et al 1978, Senda et al 1985, Cho 1983, Derenzo et al 1981, Wong et al 1984, using first NaI(Tl) in a hexagonal arrangement (Phelps et al 1976), a 1-to-1 crystal-to-photomultiplier tube (PMT) coupling and involving transverse scanning and wobbling motions, finally leading to the use of BGO in a circular arrangement operating in stationary mode (Thompson et al 1979, Cho andFarukhi 1977). It also changed the approach of our own efforts starting with multiple longitudinal planar images to the reconstruction of transverse section using dual rotating detectors, culminating in the development of a fully 3D acquisition (Muehllehner et al 1976) and reconstruction (Colsher 1980) in the late 1970s.…”