Use of SOLSTICE rotating-slat solid-state camera for small animal imaging

A concept of a slat collimator mounted directly on a rotating solid-state detector has been previously described. The camera is effectively sampling the object in a series of plane integrals which exhibit a 1/r sensitivity profile, where "r" is the distance between the object and the detector. While the main goal is to design and optimize a camera for general clinical use, the "scalability" to small objects can be exploited to provide excellent performance in small animals. This paper describes the early utilization of the camera to assess cardiac perfusion in rats. In addition to better spatial resolution, the energy discrimination will allow better use of dual isotope imaging.