Liquid Xenon detector for 10ps time of flight positron emission tomography

用于 10ps 飞行时间正电子发射断层扫描的液氙探测器

• 批准号: RGPIN-2020-05789
• 负责人: Tétrault, MarcAndré
• 金额: $ 2.4万
• 依托单位: Université de Sherbrooke
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=740829
• 关键词: Liquid; Xenon; detector; 10ps; time

Doctors rely heavily on medical imaging to assist them in the detection of various diseases in patients. Specifically, nuclear molecular imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) let us follow radioactive molecules that are injected in patients. These molecules interact - or not - with the body's chemistry. This, for example, allows oncologists to give an early diagnostic of cancer, before the tumour can be seen by other methods, as well as see if a cancer therapy is successful or not. PET imaging is also used to investigate new treatment plans or study misunderstood diseases, like Alzheimer's disease, both in humans and in small animal models of these diseases. The accuracy of the exam depends on the expert's training, but also on the quality of the images in terms of resolution (how small can we see) and contrast (sharp difference between dark and bright areas). The technology of current PET scanners has reached the limit in terms of resolution, so research to boost image quality has turned towards improving the contrast. This can be done through a complementary measurement mode named time-of-flight (ToF). In this mode, the detection of the radioactive molecule, mentioned above, becomes much more accurate, and this accuracy translates into a better contrast as there is less `guesswork' involved during the generation of the image. My research program's overall goal is to design, build and test a PET detector system that will measure ToF with 10 picosecond accuracy, which corresponds to 10 millionth of one millionth of a second. With radiation moving at the speed of light, this corresponds to a 1.5 mm spatial accuracy. For comparison, the best commercial clinical scanners have a TOF accuracy of about 400 picosecond, or 6 cm. A massively multidisciplinary goal, my research program leverages recent innovations achieved at Université de Sherbrooke in ultra-fast sensor electronics. To achieve the 10 picosecond detector, my program will contribute to 1) experimentally confirm that liquid xenon, a very fast detection material but seldom used in PET, can reach the 10 picosecond goal or not; 2) develop electronics that can handle networks of these new sensors and process their gigabits per second of generated data on the fly, otherwise unmanageable in the clinic 3) investigate the compatibility of emerging low-cost sensors with PET for eventual commercialization of the scanner system. The resulting detector module will enable the construction of a new generation of high contrast human PET scanners, with more than 10x improvement over the best commercial scanners in the world. This increased contrast will allow us to inject less radioactive molecules in patients when performing PET scans, hence opening PET imaging to pediatric, natal and neonatal imaging. Lastly, my cutting-edge program will consolidate Canada's position as world leader in state-of-the-art PET scanner design.

医生在很大程度上依赖医学成像来帮助他们检测病人的各种疾病。具体来说，核分子成像技术，如正电子发射断层扫描（PET），可以让我们跟踪注入患者体内的放射性分子。这些分子与身体的化学反应相互作用，或者不相互作用。例如，这使肿瘤学家能够在其他方法发现肿瘤之前，对癌症进行早期诊断，并确定癌症治疗是否成功。PET成像也用于研究新的治疗方案或研究被误解的疾病，如阿尔茨海默病，无论是在人类身上还是在这些疾病的小动物模型上。考试的准确性取决于专家的训练，但也取决于图像的分辨率（我们能看到多小）和对比度（暗区和亮区之间的明显差异）。目前的PET扫描仪在分辨率方面已经达到了极限，因此提高图像质量的研究转向了提高对比度。这可以通过一种名为飞行时间（ToF）的补充测量模式来完成。在这种模式下，上面提到的放射性分子的检测变得更加准确，并且这种准确性转化为更好的对比度，因为在图像生成过程中涉及的“猜测”较少。我的研究项目的总体目标是设计、构建和测试一个PET探测器系统，该系统将以10皮秒的精度测量ToF，相当于百万分之一秒的千万分之一。在辐射以光速移动的情况下，这相当于1.5毫米的空间精度。相比之下，最好的商用临床扫描仪的TOF精度约为400皮秒，即6厘米。一个大规模的多学科目标，我的研究项目利用了最近在舍布鲁克大学在超高速传感器电子方面取得的创新成果。为了实现10皮秒探测器，我的程序将有助于1)实验证实液体氙，一种非常快速的检测材料，但很少用于PET，能否达到10皮秒的目标；2)开发能够处理这些新传感器网络的电子设备，并处理其每秒千兆字节的动态生成数据，否则在临床中无法管理；3)研究新兴的低成本传感器与PET的兼容性，以最终实现扫描仪系统的商业化。由此产生的探测器模块将能够构建新一代高对比度人体PET扫描仪，比世界上最好的商用扫描仪提高10倍以上。这种增强的对比度将使我们在进行PET扫描时向患者注射更少的放射性分子，从而将PET成像扩展到儿科、新生儿和新生儿成像。最后，我的尖端项目将巩固加拿大在最先进的PET扫描仪设计方面的世界领先地位。