Performance evaluation of a prototype Positron Emission Tomography scanner using Digital Photon Counters (DPC)

Author

Degenhardt, C. ; Rodrigues, P. ; Trindade, A. ; Zwaans, B. ; Mulhens, Oliver ; Dorscheid, R. ; Thon, Andreas ; Salomon, Antoine ; Frach, Thomas

Author_Institution

Philips Digital Photon Counting, Aachen, Germany

fYear

2012

fDate

Oct. 27 2012-Nov. 3 2012

Firstpage

2820

Lastpage

2824

Abstract

We show performance results of a prototype Positron Emission Tomography scanner based on digital SiPMs, or Digital Photon Counters (DPC), developed by the Philips Digital Photon Counting unit. The scalability of the DPC technology is demonstrated by an excellent system coincidence timing resolution of 266 ps FWHM and an energy resolution of 10.7 % FWHM. Even while using 4 mm × 4 mm × 22 mm LYSO crystals, the spatial resolution is close to 2.4 mm. Although not optimized yet, the image homogeneity is 5.8 %. We show that the system performance is maintained even at highest count rates encountered in PET scans.

Keywords

cerium compounds; image resolution; image scanners; image sensors; lutetium compounds; medical image processing; performance evaluation; photodetectors; photomultipliers; photon counting; positron emission tomography; silicon; yttrium compounds; Ce_2x(Lu_1-yY_y)_2(1-x)SiO₅; DPC technology; FWHM; LYSO crystal; Si; coincidence timing resolution system; digital SiPM; image homogeneity; image resolution; image sensor; performance evaluation; philips digital photon counting unit; prototype positron emission tomography scanner; silicon photomultiplier; time 266 ps;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC), 2012 IEEE

Conference_Location

Anaheim, CA

ISSN

1082-3654

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-2028-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2012.6551643

Filename

6551643