Recent Advances of Radiation Detector Systems in Nuclear Medicine Imaging

Abstract

Radiation detector systems in nuclear medicine imaging A radiation detector system in nuclear medicine imaging is definitely a timely topic or area of research where not many papers are available in the literature of nuclear medicine imaging. Arguably, no single device can detect all kinds of radiation and no one device is useful in all situations. Understanding of the principles of radiation detection and the characteristics of the commonly encountered detection devices is essential in nuclear medicine imaging. All radiation detector systems share the characteristic that the radiation incident on the transducer produces ionization effects that are not directly observable. The ideal radiation detector system achieves high quantum detection efficiency by effectively absorbing the radiation of interest. As a US National Institute of Health (NIH-T32) Research Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, I had the opportunity to be a member of the Center for Advanced Medical Imaging Sciences now called the Gordon Center for Medical Imaging [1]. During my training, I worked in physics and instrumentation in nuclear medicine [2]. In this article, I am reviewing the types of detectors encountered in nuclear medicine and the recent advances of radiation detector systems in nuclear medicine imaging. The detectors have been used in numerous medical applications such as isotope preparation, studies of biological samples, anatomical studies, whole-body counting, in vivo counting,