Technical Development of Interventional Nuclear Imaging

Abstract

It can be challenging to determine where exactly in the nuclear images the radionuclide accumulations occurred since no detailed anatomical information is given. An important innovation in nuclear medicine has hence been the introduction of hybrid imaging systems that consist of SPECT SPECT Scanner The SPECT scanner consists of one or multiple gamma cameras for the detection of the gamma photons. These gamma cameras compromise a collimator, a scintillator, and photomultipliertubes [10]. The collimator is made out of a dense material (usually, lead) that has an alternating pattern of holes and septa [11]. Only the photons that are traveling in the direction parallel to the septa can pass through the holes in the collimator so that directional information is acquired. These photons then interact with a scintillation material (often, thallium-doped sodium iodine) that transforms the photons into light. The signal arising from a single photon is low and should be amplified. This is achieved by the photomultiplier tubes that convert the light into an electronic signal that can be measured. The strength of the electronic signal is proportional to the energy of the gamma photon and the signal distribution across multiple photomultiplier tubes can be used to determine the initial gamma photon interaction position. Figure 2: The SPECT reconstruction visualizes the radionuclide distribution (upper left). The CT reconstruction visualizes the anatomy (upper right). The combined SPECT/CT reconstruction complements the radionuclide distribution with anatomical details (lower). − CHAPTER 5 introduces a novel method for motion compensation by extracting the motion signal from the anatomical images that are acquired simultaneously with the nuclear imaging in the interventional scanner and evaluates the method performance using digital simulations. − CHAPTER 6 validates the proposed motion compensation technique using phantom experiments. 19. Veldkamp WJ, Thijssen MA, Karssemeijer N. The value of scatter removal by a grid in full field digital mammography.