Investigation of the count rate performance of the General Electric Advance positron emission tomograph

A series of 2D and 3D count rate measurements have been carried out on the Advance PET system. The measurements include: NEMA standard protocols; simultaneous imaging of two small vials containing [O-15] water and [F-18]; a cardiac insert placed in a water filled elliptical tank; two different head sized cylindrical tanks; and a Hoffman 3D phantom. The data were processed with and without dead time and scatter corrections. Plots were made of the total count rate, randoms, trues+scatter, scatter corrected trues, and noise equivalent count rate as a function of total activity in the machine and as the μCi/cc in the phantoms. The accuracy of deadtime corrections was also measured. In 2D mode, the NEMA standard protocol resulted in maximum `trues´ count rates of 540,000 cps in high sensitivity mode. In 3D mode the head sized cylindrical phantoms yielded a maximum trues rate of approximately 950,000 cps. Recovery of the water half-life was accurate with up to 50 mCi for the cardiac insert in 2D mode