Design of a very high-resolution small animal PET scanner using a silicon scatter detector insert

Optimum selection for multi-interaction events in Compton-PET hybrid reconstruction: a Monte Carlo study

In Compton PET, that has a scatterer inserted inside a PET ring, there are multi-interaction events that can be treated as both PET and Compton events. A PET event from multi-interaction events that include a Compton event and a photoelectric absorption event or two Compton events can be extracted by applying a PET recovery method. In this study, we aimed to establish a method to maximize image quality by utilizing such redundant events. We conducted brain-scale Monte Carlo simulations of a C-shaped Compton-PET geometry and a whole gamma imaging (WGI) geometry. Images were reconstructed by a hybrid image reconstruction method combining both PET and Compton events. The result showed that the spatial resolution was improved when treated as PET events while keeping the noise level. The effect of improvement was more significant in WGI than in C-shaped Compton PET because the number of events recovered as PET events having more accurate spatial information was much larger in WGI. When the PET-recovered multi-interaction events were also included as Compton events in the hybrid reconstruction, we did not observe any improvement in image quality, while the number of used events was largest. The results suggested that treating events as PET events exclusively was better for image quality.

New probe for the improvement of the Spatial Resolution in total-body PET (PROScRiPT)

In recent decades, PET scanners have been widely used for diagnosis and treatment monitoring in nuclear medicine. The continuous effort of the scientific community has led to improvements in scanner performance. Total-body PET is one of the latest upgrades in PET scanners. These kinds of scanners are able to scan the whole body of the patient with a single bed position, since the scanner tube is long enough for the patient to fit inside. While these scanners show unprecedented efficiency and extended field-of-view, a drawback is their low spatial resolution compared to dedicated scanners. In order to improve the spatial resolution of specific areas when measuring with a total-body PET scanner, the IRIS group at IFIC-Valencia is developing a probe. The proposed setup of the probe contains a monolithic scintillation crystal and a SiPM. The signal of the probe is read out by a TOFPET2 ASIC from PETsys, which has shown good performance for PET in terms of spatial and time resolutions. Furthermore, the PETsys technology generates a trigger signal that will be used to time synchronise the probe and the scanner. The proof-of-concept of the probe will be tested in a Preclinical Super Argus PET/CT scanner for small animals located at IFIC. Preliminary simulations of the scanner and the probe under ideal conditions show a slight improvement in the position reconstruction compared to the data obtained with the scanner, therefore we expect a considerable improvement when using the probe in a total-body PET scanner. Characterisation tests of the probe have been performed with a 22Na point-like source, obtaining an energy resolution of 9.09% for the 511 keV energy peak and a temporal resolution of 619 ps after time walk correction. The next step of the project is to test the probe measuring in temporal coincidence with the scanner.

3D Compton image reconstruction method for whole gamma imaging

Compton imaging or Compton camera imaging has been studied well, but its advantages in nuclear medicine and molecular imaging have not been demonstrated yet. Therefore, the aim of this work was to compare Compton imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) by using the same imaging platform of whole gamma imaging (WGI). WGI is a concept that combines PET with Compton imaging by inserting a scatterer ring into a PET ring. This concept utilizes diverse types of gamma rays for 3D tomographic imaging. In this paper, we remodeled our previous WGI prototype for small animal imaging, and we developed an image reconstruction method based on a list-mode ordered subset expectation maximization algorithm incorporating detector response function modeling, random correction and normalization (sensitivity correction) for either PET and Compton imaging. To the best of our knowledge, this is the world's first realization of a full-ring Compton imaging system. We selected ⁸⁹Zr as an imaging target because a ⁸⁹Zr nuclide emits a 909 keV single-gamma ray as well as a positron, and we can directly compare Compton imaging of 909 keV photons with PET, a well-established modality. We measured a cylindrical phantom and a small rod phantom filled with ⁸⁹Zr solutions of 10.3 MBq and 10.2 MBq activity, respectively, for 1 h each. The uniform radioactivity distribution of the cylindrical phantom was reconstructed with normalization in both PET and Compton imaging. Coefficients of variation for region-of-interest values were 4.2% for Compton imaging and 3.3% for PET; the difference might be explained by the difference in the detected count number. The small rod phantom experiment showed that the WGI Compton imaging had spatial resolution better than 3.0 mm at the peripheral region although the center region had lower resolution. PET resolved 2.2 mm rods clearly at any location. We measured a mouse for 1 h, 1 d after injection of 9.8 MBq ⁸⁹Zr oxalate. The ⁸⁹Zr assimilated in the mouse bony structures was clearly depicted, and Compton imaging results agreed well with PET images, especially for the region inside the scatterer ring. In conclusion, we demonstrated the performance of WGI using the developed Compton image reconstruction method. We realized Compton imaging with a quality approaching that of PET, which is supporting a future expectation that Compton imaging outperforms PET.

Small animal PET: a review of what we have done and where we are going

Small animal research is an essential tool in studying both pharmaceutical biodistributions and disease progression over time. Furthermore, through the rapid development of in vivo imaging technology over the last few decades, small animal imaging (also referred to as preclinical imaging) has become a mainstay for all fields of biologic research and a center point for most preclinical cancer research. Preclinical imaging modalities include optical, MRI and MRS, microCT, small animal PET, ultrasound, and photoacoustic, each with their individual strengths. The strong points of small animal PET are its translatability to the clinic; its quantitative imaging capabilities; its whole-body imaging ability to dynamically trace functional/biochemical processes; its ability to provide useful images with only nano- to pico‑ molar concentrations of administered compounds; and its ability to study animals serially over time. This review paper gives an overview of the development and evolution of small animal PET imaging. It provides an overview of detector designs; system configurations; multimodality PET imaging systems; image reconstruction and analysis tools; and an overview of research and commercially available small animal PET systems. It concludes with a look toward developing technologies/methodologies that will further enhance the impact of small animal PET imaging on medical research in the future.

A second-generation virtual-pinhole PET device for enhancing contrast recovery and improving lesion detectability of a whole-body PET/CT scanner

PURPOSE

We have developed a second-generation virtual-pinhole (VP) positron emission tomography (PET) device that can position a flat-panel PET detector around a patient's body using a robotic arm to enhance the contrast recovery coefficient (CRC) and detectability of lesions in any region-of-interest using a whole-body PET/computed tomography (CT) scanner.

METHODS

We constructed a flat-panel VP-PET device using 32 high-resolution detectors, each containing a 4  ×  4 MPPC array and 16  ×  16 LYSO crystals of 1.0  ×  1.0  ×  3.0 mm³ each. The flat-panel detectors can be positioned around a patient's body anywhere in the imaging field-of-view (FOV) of a Siemens Biograph 40 PET/CT scanner by a robotic arm. New hardware, firmware and software have been developed to support the additional detector signals without compromising a scanner's native functions. We stepped a ²² Na point source across the axial FOV of the scanner to measure the sensitivity profile of the VP-PET device. We also recorded the coincidence events measured by the scanner detectors and by the VP-PET detectors when imaging phantoms of different sizes. To assess the improvement in the CRC of small lesions, we imaged an elliptical torso phantom measuring 316  ×  228  ×  162 mm³ that contains spherical tumors with diameters ranging from 3.3 to 11.4 mm with and without the VP-PET device. Images were reconstructed using a list mode Maximum-Likelihood Estimation-Maximization algorithm implemented on multiple graphics processing units (GPUs) to support the unconventional geometries enabled by a VP-PET system. The mean and standard deviation of the CRC were calculated for tumors of different sizes. Monte Carlo simulation was also conducted to image clusters of lesions in a torso phantom using a PET/CT scanner alone or the same scanner equipped with VP-PET devices. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were analyzed for three system configurations to evaluate the improvement in lesion detectability by the VP-PET device over the native PET/CT scanner.

RESULTS

The repeatability in positioning the flat-panel detectors using a robotic arm is better than 0.15 mm in all three directions. Experimental results show that the average CRC of 3.3, 4.3, and 6.0 mm diameter tumors was 0.82%, 2.90%, and 5.25%, respectively, when measured by the native scanner. The corresponding CRC was 2.73%, 6.21% and 10.13% when imaged by the VP-PET insert device with the flat-panel detector under the torso phantom. These values may be further improved to 4.31%, 9.65% and 18.01% by a future dual-panel VP-PET insert device if DOI detectors are employed to triple its detector efficiency. Monte Carlo simulation results show that the tumor detectability can be improved by a VP-PET device that has a single flat-panel detector. The improvement is greater if the VP-PET device employs a dual-panel design.

CONCLUSIONS

We have developed a prototype flat-panel VP-PET device and integrated it with a clinical PET/CT scanner. It significantly enhances the contrast of lesions, especially for those that are borderline detectable by the native scanner, within regions-of-interest specified by users. Simulation demonstrated the enhancement in lesion detectability with the VP-PET device. This technology may become a cost-effective solution for organ-specific imaging tasks.

A generalized reconstruction framework for unconventional PET systems

PURPOSE

Quantitative estimation of the radionuclide activity concentration in positron emission tomography (PET) requires precise modeling of PET physics. The authors are focused on designing unconventional PET geometries for specific applications. This work reports the creation of a generalized reconstruction framework, capable of reconstructing tomographic PET data for systems that use right cuboidal detector elements positioned at arbitrary geometry using a regular Cartesian grid of image voxels.

METHODS

The authors report on a variety of design choices and optimization for the creation of the generalized framework. The image reconstruction algorithm is maximum likelihood-expectation-maximization. System geometry can be specified using a simple script. Given the geometry, a symmetry seeking algorithm finds existing symmetry in the geometry with respect to the image grid to improve the memory usage/speed. Normalization is approached from a geometry independent perspective. The system matrix is computed using the Siddon's algorithm and subcrystal approach. The program is parallelized through open multiprocessing and message passing interface libraries. A wide variety of systems can be modeled using the framework. This is made possible by modeling the underlying physics and data correction, while generalizing the geometry dependent features.

RESULTS

Application of the framework for three novel PET systems, each designed for a specific application, is presented to demonstrate the robustness of the framework in modeling PET systems of unconventional geometry. Three PET systems of unconventional geometry are studied. (1) Virtual-pinhole half-ring insert integrated into Biograph-40: although the insert device improves image quality over conventional whole-body scanner, the image quality varies depending on the position of the insert and the object. (2) Virtual-pinhole flat-panel insert integrated into Biograph-40: preliminary results from an investigation into a modular flat-panel insert are presented. (3) Plant PET system: a reconfigurable PET system for imaging plants, with resolution of greater than 3.3 mm, is shown. Using the automated symmetry seeking algorithm, the authors achieved a compression ratio of the storage and memory requirement by a factor of approximately 50 for the half-ring and flat-panel systems. For plant PET system, the compression ratio is approximately five. The ratio depends on the level of symmetry that exists in different geometries.

CONCLUSIONS

This work brings the field closer to arbitrary geometry reconstruction. A generalized reconstruction framework can be used to validate multiple hypotheses and the effort required to investigate each system is reduced. Memory usage/speed can be improved with certain optimizations.

Enhanced PET resolution by combining pinhole collimation and coincidence detection

Spatial resolution of clinical PET scanners is limited by detector design and photon non-colinearity. Although dedicated small animal PET scanners using specialized high-resolution detectors have been developed, enhancing the spatial resolution of clinical PET scanners is of interest as a more available alternative. Multi-pinhole 511 keV SPECT is capable of high spatial resolution but requires heavily shielded collimators to avoid significant background counts. A practical approach with clinical PET detectors is to combine multi-pinhole collimation with coincidence detection. In this new hybrid modality, there are three locations associated with each event, namely those of the two detected photons and the pinhole aperture. These three locations over-determine the line of response and provide redundant information that is superior to coincidence detection or pinhole collimation alone. Multi-pinhole collimation provides high resolution and avoids non-colinearity error but is subject to collimator penetration and artifacts from overlapping projections. However the coincidence information, though at lower resolution, is valuable for determining whether the photon passed near a pinhole within the cone acceptance angle and for identifying through which pinhole the photon passed. This information allows most photons penetrating through the collimator to be rejected and avoids overlapping projections. With much improved event rejection, a collimator with minimal shielding may be used, and a lightweight add-on collimator for high resolution imaging is feasible for use with a clinical PET scanner. Monte Carlo simulations were performed of a (18)F hot rods phantom and a 54-pinhole unfocused whole-body mouse collimator with a clinical PET scanner. Based on coincidence information and pinhole geometry, events were accepted or rejected, and pinhole-specific crystal-map projections were generated. Tomographic images then were reconstructed using a conventional pinhole SPECT algorithm. Hot rods of 1.4 mm diameter were resolved easily in a simulated phantom. System sensitivity was 0.09% for a simulated 70-mm line source corresponding to the NEMA NU-4 mouse phantom. Higher resolution is expected with further optimization of pinhole design, and higher sensitivity is expected with a focused and denser pinhole configuration. The simulations demonstrate high spatial resolution and feasibility of small animal imaging with an add-on multi-pinhole collimator for a clinical PET scanner. Further work is needed to develop geometric calibration and quantitative data corrections and, eventually, to construct a prototype device and produce images with physical phantoms.

Evaluation of a high resolution silicon PET insert module

Conventional PET systems can be augmented with additional detectors placed in close proximity of the region of interest. We developed a high resolution PET insert module to evaluate the added benefit of such a combination. The insert module consists of two back-to-back 1 mm thick silicon sensors, each segmented into 1040 1 mm2 pads arranged in a 40 by 26 array. A set of 16 VATAGP7.1 ASICs and a custom assembled data acquisition board were used to read out the signal from the insert module. Data were acquired in slice (2D) geometry with a Jaszczak phantom (rod diameters of 1.2-4.8 mm) filled with 18F-FDG and the images were reconstructed with ML-EM method. Both data with full and limited angular coverage from the insert module were considered and three types of coincidence events were combined. The ratio of high-resolution data that substantially improves quality of the reconstructed image for the region near the surface of the insert module was estimated to be about 4%. Results from our previous studies suggest that such ratio could be achieved at a moderate technological expense by using an equivalent of two insert modules (an effective sensor thickness of 4 mm).

Improving PET imaging for breast cancer using virtual pinhole PET half-ring insert

A PET insert with detector having smaller crystals and placed near a region of interest in a conventional PET scanner can improve image resolution locally due to the virtual-pinhole PET (VP-PET) effect. This improvement is from the higher spatial sampling of the imaging area near the detector. We have built a prototype half-ring PET insert for head-and-neck cancer imaging applications. In this paper, we extend the use of the insert to breast imaging and show that such a system provides high resolution images of breast and axillary lymph nodes while maintaining the full imaging field of view capability of a clinical PET scanner. We characterize the resolution and contrast recovery for tumors across the imaging field of view. First, we model the system using Monte Carlo methods to determine its theoretical limit of improvement. Simulations were conducted with hot spherical tumors embedded in background activity at tumor-to-background contrast ranging from 3:1 to 12:1. Tumors are arranged in a Derenzo-like pattern with their diameters ranging from 2 to 12 mm. Experimental studies were performed using a chest phantom with cylindrical breast attachment. Tumors of different sizes arranged in a Derenzo-like pattern with tumor-to-background ratio of 6:1 are inserted into the breast phantom. Imaging capability of mediastinum and axillary lymph nodes is explored. Both Monte Carlo simulations and experiment show clear improvement in image resolution and contrast recovery with VP-PET half-ring insert. The degree of improvement in resolution and contrast recovery depends on location of the tumor. The full field of view imaging capability is shown to be maintained. Minor artifacts are introduced in certain regions.

Silicon as an Unconventional Detector in Positron Emission Tomography

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a widely used technique in medical imaging and in studying small animal models of human disease. In the conventional approach, the 511 keV annihilation photons emitted from a patient or small animal are detected by a ring of scintillators such as LYSO read out by arrays of photodetectors. Although this has been a successful in achieving ~5mm FWHM spatial resolution in human studies and ~1mm resolution in dedicated small animal instruments, there is interest in significantly improving these figures. Silicon, although its stopping power is modest for 511 keV photons, offers a number of potential advantages over more conventional approaches. Foremost is its high spatial resolution in 3D: our past studies show that there is little diffculty in localizing 511 keV photon interactions to ~0.3mm. Since spatial resolution and reconstructed image noise trade off in a highly non-linear manner that depends on the PET instrument response, if high spatial resolution is the goal, silicon may outperform standard PET detectors even though it has lower sensitivity to 511 keV photons. To evaluate silicon in a variety of PET "magnifying glass" configurations, an instrument has been constructed that consists of an outer partial-ring of PET scintillation detectors into which various arrangements of silicon detectors can be inserted to emulate dual-ring or imaging probe geometries. Recent results have demonstrated 0.7 mm FWHM resolution using pad detectors having 16×32 arrays of 1.4mm square pads and setups have shown promising results in both small animal and PET imaging probe configurations. Although many challenges remain, silicon has potential to become the PET detector of choice when spatial resolution is the primary consideration.

A high-resolution PET demonstrator using a silicon "magnifying glass"

To assist ongoing investigations of the limits of the tradeoff between spatial resolution and noise in PET imaging, several PET instruments based on silicon-pad detectors have been developed. The latest is a segment of a dual-ring device to demonstrate that excellent reconstructed image resolution can be achieved with a scanner that uses high-resolution detectors placed close to the object of interest or surrounding a small field-of-view in combination with detectors having modest resolution at larger radius. The outer ring of our demonstrator comprises conventional BGO block detectors scavenged from a clinical PET scanner and located at a 500mm radius around a 50mm diameter field-of-view. The inner detector-in contrast to the high-Z scintillator typically used in PET-is based on silicon-pad detectors located at 70mm nominal radius. Each silicon detector has 512 1.4mm x 1.4mm x 1mm detector elements in a 16 x 32 array and is read out using VATA GP7 ASICs (Gamma Medica-Ideas, Northridge, CA). Even though virtually all interactions of 511 keV annihilation photons in silicon are Compton-scatter, both high spatial resolution and reasonable sensitivity appears possible. The system has demonstrated resolution of ~0.7mm FWHM with Na-22 for coincidences having the highest intrinsic resolution (silicon-silicon) and 5-6mm FWHM for the lowest resolution BGO-BGO coincidences. Spatial resolution for images reconstructed from the mixed silicon-BGO coincidences is ~1.5mm FWHM demonstrating the "magnifying-glass" concept.

Design and Characteristics of a Multichannel Front-End ASIC Using Current-Mode CSA for Small-Animal PET Imaging

This paper presents the design and characteristics of a front-end readout application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) dedicated to a multichannel-plate photodetector coupled to LYSO scintillating crystals. In our configuration, the crystals are oriented in the axial direction readout on both sides by individual photodetector channels allowing the spatial resolution and the detection efficiency to be independent of each other. Both energy signals and timing triggers from the photodetectors are required to be read out by the front-end ASIC. A current-mode charge-sensitive amplifier is proposed for this application. This paper presents performance characteristics of a 10-channel prototype chip designed and fabricated in a 0.35-μm complementary metal-oxide semiconductor process. The main results of simulations and measurements are presented and discussed. The gain of the chip is 13.1 mV/pC while the peak time of a CR-RC pulse shaper is 280 ns. The signal-to-noise ratio is 39 dB and the rms noise is 300 μV/√(Hz). The nonlinearity is less than 3% and the crosstalk is about 0.2%. The power dissipation is less than 15 mW/channel. This prototype will be extended to a 64-channel circuit with integrated time-to-digital converter and analog-to-digital converter together for a high-sensitive small-animal positron emission tomography imaging system.

Adaptive imaging for lesion detection using a zoom-in PET system

Positron emission tomography (PET) has become a leading modality in molecular imaging. Demands for further improvements in spatial resolution and sensitivity remain high with growing number of applications. In this paper we present a novel PET system design that integrates a high-resolution depth-of-interaction (DOI) detector into an existing PET system to obtain higher-resolution and higher-sensitivity images in a target region around the face of the high-resolution detector. A unique feature of the proposed PET system is that the high-resolution detector can be adaptively positioned based on the detectability or quantitative accuracy of a feature of interest. This paper focuses on the signal-known-exactly, background-known-exactly (SKE-BKE) detection task. We perform theoretical analysis of lesion detectability using computer observers, and then develop methods that can efficiently calculate the optimal position of the high-resolution detector that maximizes the lesion detectability. We simulated incorporation of a high-resolution DOI detector into the microPET II scanner. Quantitative results verified that the new system has better performance than the microPET II scanner in terms of spatial resolution and lesion detectability, and that the optimal position for lesion detection can be reliably predicted by the proposed method.

High-resolution adaptive PET imaging

While the performance of small animal PET systems has been improved impressively in terms of spatial resolution and sensitivity, demands for further improvements remain high with growing number of applications. Here we propose a novel PET system design that integrates a high-resolution detector into an existing PET system to obtain higher-resolution images in a target region. The high-resolution detector will be adaptively positioned based on the detectability or quantitative accuracy of a feature of interest. The proposed system will be particularly effective for studying human cancers using animal models where tumors are often grown near the skin surface and therefore permit close contact with the high resolution detector. It will also be useful for the high-resolution brain imaging in rodents. In this paper, we present the theoretical analysis and Monte Carlo simulation studies of the performance of the proposed system.

Theoretical analysis and simulation study of a high-resolution zoom-in PET system

We study a novel PET system that integrates a high-resolution zoom-in detector into an existing PET scanner to provide higher resolution and sensitivity in a target region. In contrast to a full-ring PET insert, the proposed system is designed to focus on the target region close to the face of the high-resolution detector. The proposed design is easier to implement than a full-ring insert and provides flexibility for adaptive PET imaging. We developed a maximum a posteriori (MAP) image reconstruction method for the proposed system. Theoretical analysis of the resolution and noise properties of the MAP reconstruction is performed. We show that the proposed PET system offers better performance in terms of resolution-noise tradeoff and lesion detectability. The results are validated using computer simulations.

Recent developments in PET detector technology

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a tool for metabolic imaging that has been utilized since the earliest days of nuclear medicine. A key component of such imaging systems is the detector modules--an area of research and development with a long, rich history. Development of detectors for PET has often seen the migration of technologies, originally developed for high energy physics experiments, into prototype PET detectors. Of the many areas explored, some detector designs go on to be incorporated into prototype scanner systems and a few of these may go on to be seen in commercial scanners. There has been a steady, often very diverse development of prototype detectors, and the pace has accelerated with the increased use of PET in clinical studies (currently driven by PET/CT scanners) and the rapid proliferation of pre-clinical PET scanners for academic and commercial research applications. Most of these efforts are focused on scintillator-based detectors, although various alternatives continue to be considered. For example, wire chambers have been investigated many times over the years and more recently various solid-state devices have appeared in PET detector designs for very high spatial resolution applications. But even with scintillators, there have been a wide variety of designs and solutions investigated as developers search for solutions that offer very high spatial resolution, fast timing, high sensitivity and are yet cost effective. In this review, we will explore some of the recent developments in the quest for better PET detector technology.

Small-animal preclinical nuclear medicine instrumentation and methodology

Molecular medicine enhances the clinician's ability to accurately diagnose and treat disease, and many technological advances in diverse fields have made the translation of molecular medicine to the clinic possible. Nuclear medicine encompasses 2 technologies--single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET)--that have driven the field of molecular medicine forward. SPECT and PET, inherently molecular imaging techniques, have been at the forefront of molecular medicine for several decades. These modalities exploit the radioactive decay of nuclides with specific decay properties that make them useful for in vivo imaging. As recently as the mid-1990s, SPECT and PET were mostly restricted to use in the clinical setting because their relatively coarse spatial resolution limited their usefulness in studying animal (especially rodent) models of human disease. About a decade ago, several groups began making significant strides in improving resolution to the point that small-animal SPECT and PET as a molecular imaging technique was useful in the study of rodent disease models. The advances in these 2 techniques progressed as the result of improvements in instrumentation and data reconstruction software. Here, we review the impact of small-animal imaging and, specifically, nuclear medicine imaging techniques on the understanding of the biological basis of disease and the expectation that these advances will be translated to clinical medicine.