IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science

For the 2011 FDA approved Parkinson's Disease (PD) SPECT imaging agent I-123 labeled DaTscan, the volume of interest (VOI) is the interior portion of the brain. However imaging of the occipital lobe is also required with PD for calculation of the striatal binding ratio (SBR), a parameter of significance in early diagnosis, differentiation of PD from other disorders with similar clinical presentations, and monitoring progression. Thus we propose the usage of a combination of a multi-pinhole (MPH) collimator on one head of the SPECT system and a fan-beam on the other...

The performance of an 8 × 8 array of 6.0 × 6.0 mm2 (active area) SiPMs was evaluated for PET applications using crystal arrays with different pitch sizes (3.4 mm, 1.5 mm, 1.35 mm and 1.2 mm) and custom designed five-channel front-end readout electronics (four channels for position information and one channel for timing information). The total area of this SiPM array is 57.4 × 57.4 mm2 , and the pitch size is 7.2 mm. It was fabricated using enhanced blue sensitivity SiPMs (MicroFB-60035-SMT) with peak spectral sensitivity at 420 nm...

We report on the design, fabrication, and first tests of a tomographic scanner developed for proton computed tomography (pCT) of head-sized objects. After extensive preclinical testing, pCT is intended to be employed in support of proton therapy treatment planning and pre-treatment verification in patients undergoing particle-beam therapy. The scanner consists of two silicon-strip telescopes that track individual protons before and after the phantom, and a novel multistage scintillation detector that measures a combination of the residual energy and range of the proton, from which we derive the water equivalent path length (WEPL) of the protons in the scanned object...

Recently we developed a Bayesian-FBP (Filtered Backprojection) algorithm for CT image reconstruction. This algorithm is also referred to as the FBP-MAP (FBP Maximum a Posteriori) algorithm. This non-iterative Bayesian algorithm has been applied to real-time MRI, in which the k-space is under-sampled. This current paper investigates the possibility to extend this Bayesian-FBP algorithm by introducing more controlling parameters. Thus, our original Bayesian-FBP algorithm became a special case of the extended Bayesian-FBP algorithm...

Mice are the perhaps the most common species of rodents used in biomedical research, but many of the current generation of small animal PET scanners are non-optimal for imaging these small rodents due to their relatively low resolution. Consequently, a number of researchers have investigated the development of high-resolution scanners to address this need. In this investigation, the design of a novel, high-resolution system based on the dual-detector, virtual-pinhole PET concept was explored via Monte Carlo simulations...

The capacitance based sensing of fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) variable capacitors for Co-60 gamma radiation is investigated. Linear response of the capacitance is observed for radiation dose up to 64 Gy, while the percent capacitance change per unit dose is as high as 0.24 %/Gy. An analytical model is developed to study the operational principles of the varactors and the maximum sensitivity as a function of frequency is determined. The results show that FDSOI varactor dosimeters have potential for extremely-high sensitivity as well as the potential for high frequency operation in applications such as wireless radiation sensing...

The ML-EM (maximum likelihood expectation maximization) algorithm is the most popular image reconstruction method when the measurement noise is Poisson distributed. This short paper considers the problem that for a given noisy projection data set, whether the ML-EM algorithm is able to provide an approximate solution that is close to the true solution. It is well-known that the ML-EM algorithm at early iterations converges towards the true solution and then in later iterations diverges away from the true solution...

Advances in fabrication techniques, electronics, and mechanical cooling systems have given rise to germanium detectors suitable for biomedical imaging. We are developing a small-animal SPECT system that uses a double-sided Ge strip detector. The detector's excellent energy resolution may help to reduce scatter and simplify processing of multi-isotope imaging, while its ability to measure depth of interaction has the potential to mitigate parallax error in pinhole imaging. The detector's energy resolution is <1% FWHM at 140 keV and its spatial resolution is approximately 1...

We present a 16-channel readout integrated circuit (ROIC) with nanosecond-resolution time to digital converter (TDC) for pixelated Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) gamma-ray detectors. The 4 × 4 pixel array ROIC is the proof of concept of the 10 × 10 pixel array readout ASIC for positron-emission tomography (PET) scanner, positron-emission mammography (PEM) scanner, and Compton gamma camera. The electronics of each individual pixel integrates an analog front-end with switchable gain, an analog to digital converter (ADC), configuration registers, and a 4-state digital controller...

X-ray fluorescence computed tomography (XFCT) is an emerging imaging modality that maps the three-dimensional distribution of elements, generally metals, in ex vivo specimens and potentially in living animals and humans. Building on our previous synchrotron-based work, we experimentally explored the use of a benchtop X-ray fluorescence computed tomography system for mapping trace-metal ions in biological samples. This system utilizes a scanning pencil-beam to stimulate the object and then relies on a detection system, with single or multiple slit apertures placed in front of position-sensitive X-ray detectors, to collect the fluorescence X-rays and to form 3-D elemental map without the need for tomographic imaging reconstruction...

Low-dose X-ray computed tomography (CT) simulation from high-dose scan is required in optimizing radiation dose to patients. In this study, we propose a simple low-dose CT simulation strategy in sinogram domain using the raw data from high-dose scan. Specially, a relationship between the incident fluxes of low- and high- dose scans is first determined according to the repeated projection measurements and analysis. Second, the incident flux level of the simulated low-dose scan is generated by properly scaling the incident flux level of high-dose scan via the determined relationship in the first step...

PURPOSE: We investigate the differences without/with respiratory motion correction in apparent imaging agent localization induced in reconstructed emission images when the attenuation maps used for attenuation correction (from CT) are misaligned with the patient anatomy during emission imaging due to differences in respiratory state. METHODS: We investigated use of attenuation maps acquired at different states of a 2 cm amplitude respiratory cycle (at end-expiration, at end-inspiration, the center map, the average transmission map, and a large breath-hold beyond range of respiration during emission imaging) to correct for attenuation in MLEM reconstruction for several anatomical variants of the NCAT phantom which included both with and without non-rigid motion between heart and sub-diaphragmatic regions (such as liver, kidneys etc)...

This paper investigates some potential methods for few-view tomography, and investigates the cause and remedy of the staircase artifacts. This paper also discusses whether there is any benefit to use edge-preserving filters in emission tomography. We formulate a general Green's one-step-late algorithm, so that it can incorporate any linear or non-linear filters. We argue that the derivative of the penalty function can be "artificially" created, not naturally derived from a penalty function. We have gained more insight into constrained image reconstruction especially with edge-preserving constraints...

Accurate PET system timing alignment minimizes the coincidence time window and therefore reduces random events and improves image quality. It is also critical for time-of-flight (TOF) image reconstruction. Here, we use a thin annular cylinder (shell) phantom filled with a radioactive source and located axially and centrally in a PET camera for the timing alignment of a TOF PET system. This timing alignment method involves measuring the time differences between the selected coincidence detector pairs, calibrating the differential and integral nonlinearity of the time-to-digital converter (TDC) with the same raw data and deriving the intrinsic time biases for each detector using an iterative algorithm...

Metabolic imaging techniques can potentially improve detection and diagnosis of cancer in women with radiodense and/or fibrocystic breasts. Our group has previously developed a high-resolution positron emission tomography imaging and biopsy device (PEM-PET) to detect and guide the biopsy of suspicious breast lesions. Initial testing revealed that the imaging field-of-view (FOV) of the scanner was smaller than the physical size of the detector's active area, which could hinder sampling of breast areas close to the chest wall...

A new phoswich detector is being developed at the Crump Institute, aiming to provide improvements in sensitivity, and spatial resolution for PET. The detector configuration is comprised of two layers of pixelated scintillator crystal arrays, a glass light guide and a light detector. The annihilation photon entrance (top) layer is a 48 × 48 array of 1.01 × 1.01 × 7 mm(3) LYSO crystals. The bottom layer is a 32 × 32 array of 1.55 × 1.55 × 9 mm(3) BGO crystals. A tapered, multiple-element glass lightguide is used to couple the exit end of the BGO crystal array (52 × 52 mm(2)) to the photosensitive area of the Position Sensitive Photomultiplier Tube (46 × 46 mm(2)), allowing the creation of flat panel detectors without gaps between the detector modules...

Accurate kinetic modelling using dynamic PET requires knowledge of the tracer concentration in plasma, known as the arterial input function (AIF). AIFs are usually determined by invasive blood sampling, but this is prohibitive in murine studies due to low total blood volumes. As a result of the low spatial resolution of PET, image-derived input functions (IDIFs) must be extracted from left ventricular blood pool (LVBP) ROIs of the mouse heart. This is challenging because of partial volume and spillover effects between the LVBP and myocardium, contaminating IDIFs with tissue signal...

We have previously reported on dMiCE, a method of resolving depth or interaction (DOI) in a pair of discrete crystals by encoding light sharing properties as a function of depth in the interface of a crystal-element pair. A challenge for this method is the cost and repeatability of interface treatment for each crystal pair. In this work, we report our preliminary results on using sub-surface laser engraving (SSLE) as a means of forming this depth-dependent interface in a dMiCE detector. A surplus first-generation SSLE system was used to create a partially reflective layer 100-microns thick at the boundary between two halves of a 1...

We have constructed and characterized a time-of-flight Positron Emission Tomography (TOF PET) camera called the Tachyon. The Tachyon is a single-ring Lutetium Oxyorthosilicate (LSO) based camera designed to obtain significantly better timing resolution than the ~ 550 ps found in present commercial TOF cameras, in order to quantify the benefit of improved TOF resolution for clinically relevant tasks. The Tachyon's detector module is optimized for timing by coupling the 6.15 × 25 mm(2) side of 6.15 × 6.15 × 25 mm(3) LSO scintillator crystals onto a 1-inch diameter Hamamatsu R-9800 PMT with a super-bialkali photocathode...

The Fano factor for an integer-valued random variable is defined as the ratio of its variance to its mean. Light from various scintillation crystals have been reported to have Fano factors from sub-Poisson (Fano factor < 1) to super-Poisson (Fano factor > 1). For a given mean, a smaller Fano factor implies a smaller variance and thus less noise. We investigated if lower noise in the scintillation light will result in better spatial and energy resolutions. The impact of Fano factor on the estimation of position of interaction and energy deposited in simple gamma-camera geometries is estimated by two methods - calculating the Cramér-Rao bound and estimating the variance of a maximum likelihood estimator...