Straw Detector Positron Emission Mammography System

描述(申请人提供)：乳腺癌是女性中第二常见的癌症，在美国每年的死亡率为40,000。然而，如果及早发现和治疗，95%以上的乳腺癌患者将存活下来。目前的乳腺癌检测方法在很大程度上依赖于X光乳房X光检查，它会产生许多假阳性结果。这些错误的阳性读数给患者带来了巨大的精神痛苦，在许多情况下，还会造成昂贵而痛苦的活组织检查。整整80%的活组织检查只发现了良性肿块和钙化，估计每年的成本为25亿美元。为了改进乳腺癌检测，我们提出了一种高度创新的设计，用于专用正电子发射乳房摄影(PEM)相机，该相机使用长线性铅壁吸管(LWS)探测器，提供高空间分辨率和严格准确的相互作用深度确定。因此，可以使用具有足够视场的检测器来容纳整个乳房而无需平移，并且可以使用非常近的检测器对间距而不会降低分辨率。与正在开发的基于晶体的PEM相机相比，我们建议的相机提供了显著提高的灵敏度和分辨率，同时大幅降低了成本。该项目的第一阶段将通过建造和测试全尺寸相机的两个重要子模块来实现概念验证。在第二阶段，将建造一台全尺寸高灵敏度原型相机并进行测试。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Breast cancer is the second most prevalent cancer in women, with a mortality rate of 40,000 per year in the US. However, if detected and treated early, more than 95% of breast cancer patients will survive. Current method for breast cancer detection relies heavily on X-ray mammography, which produces many false positive findings. These false positive readings cause substantial mental anguish in patients and in many cases, costly and painful biopsies. A full 80% of all biopies uncover only benign masses and calcifications at an estimated annual cost of 2.5 billion dollars. To improve breast cancer detection, we propose a highly innovative design for a dedicated Positron Emission Mammography (PEM) camera utilizing long, linear, lead-walled straw (LWS) detectors that provide high spatial resolution and rigorously accurate depth of interaction determination. Thus detectors with ample field of view to contain the entire breast without translation can be employed and very close detector pair spacing can be used without resolution degradation. Our proposed camera offers markedly increased sensitivity and resolution with substantially reduced cost compared to crystal-based PEM cameras under development. Phase I of the project will achieve proof of concept by constructing and testing two substantial submodules of a full scale camera. In Phase II, a full scale high sensitivity prototype camera will be constructed and tested.