REDUCING LIGHT-SPREAD IN COINCIDENCE DETECTION CAMERAS

这项建议解决了闪烁相机技术的不足，该技术与使用最近开发的符合检测(CD)方法的全身癌症成像直接相关。这些相机目前被用作更昂贵的正电子成像断层扫描(PET)系统的替代品，用于检测全身癌症。尽管它们被广泛接受，主要是因为它们的成本和多功能性，但它们对肿瘤检测的敏感度比PET差得多。毫无疑问，CD相机的性能可以通过减少其晶体探测器产生的伽马射线闪烁的光线扩散来改善。在该建议中，建议可以通过改变晶体的结构来显著地减少光扩散。新的设计有望使制造用于CD相机的更厚的晶体成为可能，从而将灵敏度提高两倍。所提出的方法应该将30 mm晶体中的光扩散减少到与10 mm晶体相同的程度，以便为较低能量的单光子成像应用保留分辨率特性。这一变化还将提高CD的能量和空间分辨率，更重要的是，将其计数能力(其最严重的限制)提高数倍。最终(第二阶段和第三阶段)，这一发展将导致生产闪烁相机板，将提供给所有相机制造商，或作为现有相机的改装。每年大约生产3500块照相机板，其中约一半是为CD成像而设计的。拟议的商业应用这项研究有望为符合探测(CD)相机提供比目前相机晶体性能更好的闪烁晶体。这些相机板可以出售给所有相机制造商或改装到现有相机上。据估计，CD水晶板的市场价值约为3500万美元。

This proposal addresses a deficiency of scintillation camera technology, which has direct bearing on cancer imaging in the whole-body using recently developed coincidence detection (CD) methods. These cameras are currently being used as an alternative to the more costly positron imaging tomography (PET) systems for the detection of cancer of the whole body. Although they are gaining wide acceptance, primarily because of their cost and versatility, their sensitivity for tumor detection is much poorer than that of PET. Unquestionably, the performance of CD cameras can be improved by reducing spread of light from gamma ray scintillations produced their crystal detectors. It is suggested in this proposal that light spread can be reduced substantially by modifying the architecture of the crystal. The new designs are expected to make it possible to construct thicker crystals for use in CD cameras, thereby increasing sensitivity by a factor of two. The methods proposed should reduce light spreads in a 30 mm crystal to the same as those exhibited by a 10 mm crystal so as to preserve resolution characteristics for lower energy single- photon imaging applications. This change will also improve the energy and spatial resolutions of CD and, more significantly, increase their count-rate capability (their severest limitation) by several-fold. Ultimately (Phase II and III), this development should lead to the production of scintillation camera plates that will be offered to all camera manufacturers, or as retrofits to existing cameras. There are approximately 3500 camera plates produce a year of which about half are designed for CD imaging. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION This research is expected to make available scintillation crystals for coincident detections (CD) cameras that perform much better than current camera crystals. These camera plates can be sold to all camera manufacturers or retrofitted to existing cameras. The market for CD crystal plates is estimated to be approximately 35 million dollars.