Performance evaluation of microPET: a high-resolution lutetium oxyorthosilicate PET scanner for animal imaging.

作者：Arion F. Chatziioannou, Simon R. Cherry, Yiping Shao, Robert W. Silverman, Ken Meadors, T.H. Farquhar, Marjan Pedarsani, Michael E. Phelps · 发表于：PubMed · 年份：1999 · 被引用次数：347 · 研究领域：Medical Imaging Techniques and Applications、Radiation Detection and Scintillator Technologies、bioluminescence and chemiluminescence research

UNLABELLED: A new dedicated PET scanner, microPET, was designed and developed at the University of California, Los Angeles, for imaging small laboratory animals. The goal was to provide a compact system with superior spatial resolution at a fraction of the cost of a clinical PET scanner. METHODS: The system uses fiberoptic readout of individually cut lutetium oxyorthosilicate (LSO) crystals to achieve high spatial resolution. Each microPET detector consists of an 8 x 8 array of 2 x 2 x 10-mm LSO scintillation crystals that are coupled to a 64-channel photomultiplier tube by optical fibers. The tomograph consists of 30 detectors in a continuous ring with a 17.2-cm diameter and fields of view (FOVs) of 11.25 cm in the transaxial direction and 1.8 cm in the axial direction. The system has eight crystal rings and no interplane septa. It operates exclusively in the three-dimensional mode and has an electronically controlled bed that is capable of wobbling with a radius of 300 microm. We describe the performance of the tomograph in terms of its spatial, energy and timing resolution, as well as its sensitivity and counting-rate performance. We also illustrate its overall imaging performance with phantom and animal studies that demonstrate the potential applications of this device to biomedical research. RESULTS: Images reconstructed with three-dimensional filtered backprojection show a spatial resolution of 1.8 mm at the center of the FOV (CFOV), which remains <2.5 mm for the centra...