Performance evaluation of a small animal PET scanner. Spatial resolution characterization using 18F and 11C

The performance of a depth-of-interaction preclinical small animal PET scanner (GE eXplore Vista) has been investigated. To this purpose several parameters such as spatial resolution, sensitivity, scatter fraction and noise equivalent counts were measured. Because of the different mean positron range of 18F and 11C attention was focused on measuring the effect of such difference on the scanner spatial resolution. The spatial resolution was measured using a point, a line source and a high resolution phantom. Scatter fraction and noise equivalent counts were measured using mouse and rat size objects. Results show that the eXplore Vista provides a spatial resolution of 1.48 mm and sensitivity up to 6%. In vivo images of small mice were also presented.