Agradecimientos:
This work is partially funded by the CD-TEAM project, CENIT Program,
Spanish Ministerio de Industria and with grants from the Ministerio de
Educaci6n y Ciencia, Projects TEC2007-6473I and TEC2008-06715-C02-01
This work reports on the development and
evaluation of the PET component of a PETtCT system for
small-animal in-vivo imaging. The PET and CT subsystems are
assembled in a rotary gantry in such a way that the center of
rotation for both imaging modalities iThis work reports on the development and
evaluation of the PET component of a PETtCT system for
small-animal in-vivo imaging. The PET and CT subsystems are
assembled in a rotary gantry in such a way that the center of
rotation for both imaging modalities is mechanically aligned.
The PET scanner configuration is based on 2 detector
modules, each of which consist of 2 flat-panel type PS-PMTs
(Hamamatsu, H8500) and 2 (30 x 30 elements) LYSO arrays.
The dimension of the crystal matrix elements are 1.4 x 1.4 mm2
in cross section and 12 mm in depth. The VrPET detector
modules are positioned in opposite sides of a 140 mm diameter
ring, providing a transaxial field of view of 86.6 mm diameter
and an axial field of view of 45.6 mm. The experimental results
obtained in the performance tests are transaxial resolution of
1.5 mm FWHM in the CFOV, and the axial resolution of 2.3
mm FWHM. The absolute coincidence sensitivity is 2.22 % for
a coincidence window of 6 ns (100-700 keY). The imaging capability of the PET unit is demonstrated on phantom and
animal studies.[+][-]
