Breast Cancer Specific PET Instrumentation

描述(申请人提供)：这个项目的总体目标是开发两个几何形状优化的PET摄像机，用于检测乳房 癌症。这些X光后乳房X光检查工具将确定是否可疑 病变与乳腺癌相关的新陈代谢增强，并具有 提供一种经济有效、非侵入性的活组织检查替代方法的潜力。 FDG是乳腺癌的一种极好的示踪剂，特异性为90% 敏感度，用常规的PET成像测量病变&gt；1厘米。我们 相信它们较高的立体角度覆盖率和空间分辨率 专门的摄像头将允许他们将肿瘤的最小尺寸推向 在直径远小于1厘米的情况下，实现这种高诊断精度。这些高 性能摄像头包含的探测器体积要小得多，这可以 与传统的PET相比，摄像头成本降低了10倍 让患者更容易获得这项技术。 我们的两个几何结构将PET探测器模块放置在靠近乳房的位置 (类似于乳房X光照相装置)。有一个几何图形是矩形的，并且完全 环绕乳房，而另一个是一对平行平面。这些 几何形状显著提高了传感器的灵敏度和空间分辨率 与传统的PET摄像机相比，灵敏度提高了1倍 30用于矩形几何图形，20用于平行平面几何图形，而 两个几何图形的空间分辨率都增加了2倍。我们预测 这将允许快速识别结构的癌变损害 直径降至5毫米，甚至可能注射小剂量(&lt；1 mci)的 FDG(比目前研究中使用的FDG少10倍)。 在过去的6年里，我们开发了核心相机组件，包括高 可测量相互作用深度的高性能PET探测器模块 在晶体和必要的读出电子设备中。就像建筑一样 几乎已经完成，目前的项目重点是调试PET 摄像机，开发校准例程和重建算法 这些独特的相机几何结构，用来表征成像属性 并对患者的成像特性进行了初步评估。 这些摄像头是专门为乳腺癌设计的，但探测器 所开发的模块也可以集成到其他高分辨率PET中 摄像机的几何形状，如高分辨率、高灵敏度的人脑 具有极高灵敏度的成像仪或小动物(鼠标)扫描仪。这些 设计完成后，将提供给私营行业纳入其中 商业票据。

Description (provided by applicant): The overall aim of this project is to develop two PET cameras whose geometries are optimized for detecting breast cancer. These post- x-ray mammography tools would determine whether suspicious lesions have the increased metabolism associated with breast cancers, and have the potential to provide a cost effective, non-invasive alternative to biopsy. FDG is an excellent tracer for breast cancer with >90 percent specificity and sensitivity, as measured with conventional PET imaging for lesions >1 cm. We believe that the higher solid angle coverage and spatial resolution of these specialized cameras will allow them to push the minimum tumor size needed to achieve this high diagnostic accuracy to well below 1 cm diameter. These high performance cameras contain a much smaller volume of detector, which could reduce the camera cost by a factor of 10 compared to conventional PET and so make the technology more readily available to patients. Our two geometries place PET detector modules in close proximity to the breast (similar to a mammography unit). One geometry is rectangular and completely encircles the breast while the other is a pair of parallel planes. These geometries improve the sensitivity and the spatial resolution significantly compared to a conventional PET camera; the sensitivity increases by a factor of 30 for the rectangular and 20 for the parallel plane geometry, while the spatial resolution increases by a factor of 2 for both geometries. We predict that this will allow rapid identification of cancerous lesions for structures down to 5 mm in diameter, possibly even with a small (<1 mCi) injected dose of FDG (which is 10 times less than that used in current studies). In the past 6 years we developed the core camera components, including a high performance PET detector module capable of measuring the depth of interaction within the crystal and the necessary readout electronics. As the construction is virtually complete, the present project focuses on commissioning the PET cameras, developing calibration routines and reconstruction algorithms for these unique camera geometries, characterizing the imaging properties with phantoms, and preliminary evaluation of the imaging properties in patients. These cameras are designed specifically for breast cancer, but the detector module developed could also be incorporated into other high resolution PET camera geometries, such as a high-resolution high-sensitivity human brain imager or a small animal (mouse) scanner with extremely high sensitivity. These designs, when complete, will be offered to private industry to incorporate into commercial instruments.