Optimization of PET scanner geometry

Abstract

Modern Positron Emission Tomographs (PET), when used for 3D imaging, have a wide open gantry without intra plane septa and only little shielding. In order to reduce the scatter contamination from activity inside and outside the field-of-view (FOV), and to block radiation originating from activity outside-the-FOV, the implementation of septa and additional patient shielding has been investigated on the existing whole body PET scanner. A series of Monte Carlo simulations, based on EGS4, were performed to predict the potential benefits. The simulations include point and line sources at various radial and axial positions in the FOV of the scanner, and different sized uniform cylinders (up to 100 cm long and 50 cm in diameter). The scanner itself is based on 6 continuous NaI(Tl) crystals, an axial FOV of 25.6 cm, a ring diameter of 90 cm, and a transaxial FOV of 56 cm. The results show that septa can reduce the relative scatter fraction and effectively block radiation from outside-the-FOV, but they also reduce the sensitivity for true events, leading to a decrease of the trues-to-singles ratio that is not desirable. The use of septa is only advantageous for large objects, if the loss of true events is compensated for by increasing the injected activity. Patient shields that are mounted outside-the-FOV reduce the contamination from scattered and single events without interfering with true events. They are more effective for objects with a small diameter and less effective for objects with a large diameter.