Advanced Collimators and Detectors for Nuclear Medicine

描述（由申请人提供）： 长期目标是提高医学成像质量，从而改善对许多人类健康疾病的检测、诊断和治疗。本研究的具体目标是制造先进的高分辨率准直器和核医学成像探测器。 一项创新的制造技术将用于生产先进的高分辨率准直器和探测器，这些准直器和探测器由改进的材料制成，以前没有用于医学成像。新的制造方法和材料的组合在设计灵活性和性能方面提供了优于当前准直器和检测器制造技术的重要优势。这是一种使能的制造相关技术，具有允许以相对低的成本生产高质量准直器和检测器系统的潜力。 第一阶段证明了技术的可行性，制造原型低能量高分辨率（LEHR）准直器采用致密（约11克/立方厘米）的复合材料，并比较其尺寸精度和成像性能对国家的最先进的市售LEHR准直器。第二阶段将把制造方法扩展到“集成”探测器系统中的其他元件，包括准直器、闪烁体探测器阵列和光学接口元件。第二阶段的目标是制造和彻底测试一个集成的小幅面伽玛相机的乳房成像。 商业应用包括核医学、计算机断层扫描、乳房X射线照相术、普通X射线照相术和非医学领域，如天体物理学、非破坏性测试和国土安全。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term objective is to improve medical imaging quality, thereby improving detection, diagnosis, and therapy for a number of human health diseases. The specific aim of this research is to fabricate advanced high-resolution collimators and detectors for nuclear medicine imaging. An innovative manufacturing technology will be used to produce advanced high-resolution collimators and detectors made from improved materials, not previously used in medical imaging. The combination of a new manufacturing method and materials offers important advantages in terms of design flexibility and performance over current collimator and detector fabrication techniques. This is an enabling manufacturing related technology with the potential to allow high-quality collimator and detector systems to be produced at a relatively low cost. Phase I demonstrated technical feasibility by fabricating prototype low energy high-resolution (LEHR) collimators employing a dense (approximately 11 g/cc) composite material, and comparing their dimensional accuracy and imaging performance against state-of-the-art commercially available LEHR collimators. Phase II will extend the manufacturing approach to other elements in an 'integrated' detector system including collimator, scintillator detector array, and optical interface elements. The Phase II objective is to fabricate and thoroughly test an integrated small-format gamma camera for breast imaging. Commercial applications include nuclear medicine, computed tomography, mammography, general radiography, and non-medical areas such as astrophysics, non-destructuve testing, and homeland security.