Enhancement of positron emission tomography (PET) imaging

我的研究涉及医疗仪器，使图像的“功能”，而不是“解剖”。晨报上的天气图是加拿大“功能图像”的一个例子。它告诉你，有一个风暴预计在渥太华今天晚些时候，但不是最好的高速公路，你会用从蒙特利尔到渥太华。道路图显示解剖学，天气图显示功能。 生物的功能图像比解剖图像具有更少的细节。如果将老鼠的大脑（在它的胡须被抚摸时被处死，并且之前被注射了放射性葡萄糖）切片，我们可以将切片放在胶片上，图像显示了大脑哪些部分活跃的非常精细的细节。但在清醒的动物或人类成像中，这种细节目前是不可能的，因为成像必须由外部检测器完成，而不是通过直接接触。 正电子发射断层扫描（PET）为临床医生和研究人员提供了目前可以获得的患者和动物的最佳质量功能图像。我的研究目标是提高PET成像的空间和时间分辨率。就像你想从天气图上知道雷暴是发生在棒球场还是城市的另一边（空间分辨率），是在球赛期间还是之后（时间分辨率）一样，我的研究旨在为功能性医学成像提供重大改进。 PET最近与称为CT扫描的解剖成像相结合，显示出诊断和分期许多癌症的最佳能力。然而，它也是最昂贵的技术，PET扫描需要更长的时间来执行。我想继续的项目之一，将使PET扫描更快，更准确，而不增加成本。这将允许每天扫描更多的患者，减少等待时间和医疗保健系统的成本。另一个将允许PET以有效和具有成本效益的方式使用新型硅光探测器，而不是目前使用的旧光电倍增管（现在只剩下一个制造商）。

My research deals with medical instruments which make images of "function" rather than "anatomy". The weather map in the morning paper is an example of a "functional image" of Canada. It tells you that there is a storm expected in Ottawa later today, but not the best highway you would use to get from Montreal to Ottawa. A road map shows anatomy, an weather map shows function. Functional images of living creatures have less detail than anatomical images. If the brain of a rat (which was sacrificed while its whiskers were being stroked, and had previously been injected with radioactive glucose), is sliced up we can put the slices on a film and the image shows very fine details of which parts of the brain were active. But in an awake animal or for human imaging such detail is presently not possible since the imaging must be done by external detectors, not by direct contact. Positron emission tomography, or PET, gives clinicians and researchers the best quality functional images of patients and animals which can be presently obtained. The goal of my research is to improve both the spatial and temporal resolution of PET imaging. Just as you would like to know from a weather map if the thunder storm was going to occur over the base-ball stadium or on the other side of town(spatial resolution) and either during or after the ball game (temporal resolution), my research is aimed at providing significant improvements in functional medical imaging. PET, recently combined with the anatomical imaging called CT scanning, shows the best ability to diagnose and stage many cancers. However, it is also the most expensive technique, and PET scans take much longer to perform. One of the projects I want to continue, will make PET scans both faster and more accurate without adding cost. This will allow more patients to be scanned per day, reducing wait-times and cost to the health care system. Another will allow PET to use novel silicon light detectors in an efficient and cost effective way instead of the older photomultiplier tubes (of which there is now only one manufacturer left) presently used.