Circular Ring Transverse Axial Positron Camera for 3-Dimensional Reconstruction of Radionuclides Distribution

The transverse axial 3-dimensional image reconstruction concepts developed in transmission tomography brought the nuclear medicine and diagnostic radiology into the realm of quantitative analysis of the 3-dimensional image hitherto superimposed in two dimensions. Two factors make it appropriate to design a positron camera system at this time, (1) analogy between the emission of photons following a positron annihilation and the transmission of photons, and (2) the already demonstrated success of positron camera multidetector systems. The camera consists of one layer of 64 (or 72) NaI(T1) crystals and PM tubes that simultaneously record coincidences from 2 × 736 (or 2 × 1116) detector combinations in a circular array.