Medical applications of opaque scintillator radiation detectors

不透明闪烁体辐射探测器的医学应用

• 批准号: ST/V001361/1
• 负责人: Jeffrey Hartnell
• 金额: $ 11.3万
• 依托单位: University of Sussex
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FV001361%2F1
• 关键词: Medical; applications; opaque; scintillator; radiation

This project is to develop a novel radiation detector technology for medical imaging that will allow devices with substantially improved performance to be built in a more cost-effective way. In medicine radioactive tracers are routinely injected into the blood stream for imaging purposes. The most commonly used one is based on glucose, which is preferentially taken up by cancer tumours or other active parts of the body thus concentrating the radioactivity. Radioisotopes that decay by emitting positrons are used since the annihilation with electrons gives rise to two 0.51 MeV gamma rays that are emitted in opposite directions (back-to-back) and typically escape from the body. Images can be formed by recording the positions and times of the gammas from thousands, or even millions, of radioactive decays. This is the technique used in a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner. These scanners are growing in demand yet their high price (typically £1.5 million per scanner) is a factor that limits their availability. The scintillation crystals used to detect the gamma rays are a substantial fraction of the cost. The objective of this project is to develop a new opaque scintillator detector that will allow larger, higher performance scanners to be built in a more cost-effective way.Many radiation detectors use scintillators, which are materials that give off light when radiation such as gamma rays hits them. Traditionally, scintillators have always been transparent, and this was necessary to allow detection of the light. The new concept that will be applied in this project is to use the combination of an opaque scintillator and a lattice of fibre optic cables. The opacity causes the light to bounce around close to where it is produced and then the fibres extract the light. Such a configuration enables high-resolution imaging capabilities at a lower cost. In the first half of this project we will investigate multiple scintillators in opaque form to establish their performance in combination with different configurations of wavelength shifting fibre optic cables. The results from those investigations will inform our design of a prototype radiation detector for medical imaging that will be built in the second half of the project.

该项目将开发一种用于医学成像的新型辐射探测器技术，使性能显著提高的设备能够以更具成本效益的方式制造。在医学上，放射性示踪剂通常被注射到血流中进行成像。最常用的一种是以葡萄糖为基础的，它优先被癌症、肿瘤或身体其他活跃部位吸收，从而集中放射性。通过发射正电子而衰变的放射性同位素被使用，因为与电子的湮灭会产生两条0.51 MeV的伽马射线，这两条射线以相反的方向(背靠背)发射，通常会从体内逃逸。通过记录数千次、甚至数百万次放射性衰变过程中伽马的位置和时间，可以形成图像。这是正电子发射断层扫描(PET)扫描仪中使用的技术。这些扫描仪的需求正在增长，但其高昂的价格(通常是每台扫描仪150万GB)是限制其可用性的一个因素。用于探测伽马射线的闪烁晶体只占成本的很大一部分。该项目的目标是开发一种新的不透明闪烁体探测器，使更大、更高性能的扫描仪能够以更具成本效益的方式建造。许多辐射探测器使用闪烁体，这种材料在伽马射线等辐射照射到闪烁体时会发光。传统上，闪烁体一直是透明的，这对于探测光线是必要的。将在这个项目中应用的新概念是使用不透明闪烁体和光纤电缆格子的组合。这种不透明度导致光线在产生光线的地方附近反弹，然后纤维提取光线。这样的配置能够以较低的成本实现高分辨率成像能力。在这个项目的前半部分，我们将研究不透明形式的多个闪烁体，以结合不同配置的波长移位光纤电缆来确定它们的性能。这些调查的结果将为我们设计一个用于医学成像的原型辐射探测器，该探测器将在项目的后半部分建造。