Testing an Improved Scintillation Camera for PET and SPECT

An extensive computer simulation has been completed to design a new type of scintillation camera for nuclear medicine. The aim of the design is to adapt the Anger camera to perform well at higher gamma energies, especially 511 keV. Such a design should provide an economic alternative to the small-crystal ring tomograph for PET, as well as improved efficiency for single photon ECT in the energy range 140-511 keV. A prototype has been constructed to test the new ideas arising from the design study. The prototype incorporates a 5 cm thick sodium iodide scintillator coupled to a rectangular array of 64 small photodetectors. Intrinsic position resolution measurements, as well as a variety of other measurements, have been performed at gamma-ray energies of 122 keV and 514 keV.