Achieving 0.4-mm FWHM spatial resolution with an RPC-based small-animal PET prototype

Author

Martins, Pedro ; Blanco, Alberto ; Crespo, Paulo ; Ferreira Marques, M. Fatima ; Ferreira Marques, Rui ; Gordo, Paulo M. ; Kajetanowicz, Marcin ; Korcyl, Grzegorz ; Lopes, Luis ; Michel, J. ; Palka, Marek ; Traxler, Michael ; Fonte, Paulo

Author_Institution

Phys. Dept., Univ. of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

fYear

2013

fDate

Oct. 27 2013-Nov. 2 2013

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

2

Abstract

We present experimental results obtained with a two-head prototype of a small-animal positron emission tomograph based on resistive plate chamber detectors (RPC-PET). A planar ²²Na disk source was imaged. The maximum-likelihood expectation maximization (MLEM) reconstruction of the acquired data yielded a resolution of 0.4mm full width at half maximum (FWHM). Each of the two detectors utilized in this work had an effective front face of 6.4 cm × 6.4 cm and consisted of 5 gas gaps with a total thickness of 5 mm. The data included lines of response (LORs) inclined up to 58 °, demonstrating the parallax-free property of RPC-PET.

Keywords

data acquisition; expectation-maximisation algorithm; image reconstruction; image resolution; medical image processing; positron emission tomography; radioisotope imaging; radioisotopes; sodium; ²²Na; FWHM spatial resolution; RPC-PET parallax-free property; RPC-based small-animal PET prototype; data acquisition; full width at half maximum; maximum-likelihood expectation maximization; planar sodium disk source; positron emission tomograph; resistive plate chamber detectors; size 5 mm; Data acquisition; Detectors; Educational institutions; Image reconstruction; Positron emission tomography; Prototypes; Spatial resolution;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC), 2013 IEEE

Conference_Location

Seoul

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-0533-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2013.6829105

Filename

6829105