Simulation studies of a full-ring, CZT SPECT system for whole-body imaging of ^99mTc and ¹⁷⁷Lu

Journal Article · Tue Mar 14 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · Medical Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/mp.16360· OSTI ID:2204143

Huh, Yoonsuk ^[1]; Caravaca, Javier ^[1]; Kim, Jaehyuk ^[2]; Cui, Yonggang ^[3]; Huang, Qiu ^[4]; Gullberg, Grant ^[5]; Seo, Youngho ^[6]

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1. University of California, San Francisco, CA (United States)
2. University Health Network, Toronto, ON (Canada)
3. Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
4. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China)
5. University of California, San Francisco, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
6. University of California, San Francisco, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is an imaging modality that has demonstrated its utility in a number of clinical indications. Despite this progress, a high sensitivity, high spatial resolution, multi-tracer SPECT with a large field of view suitable for whole-body imaging of a broad range of radiotracers for theranostics is not available. With the goal of filling this technological gap, we have designed a cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) full-ring SPECT scanner instrumented with a broad-energy tungsten collimator. The final purpose is to provide a multi-tracer solution for brain and whole-body imaging. Our static SPECT does not rely on the dual- and the triple-head rotational SPECT standard paradigm, enabling a larger effective area in each scan to increase the sensitivity. We provide a demonstration of the performance of our design using a realistic model of our detector with simulated body-sized phantoms filled with ^99mTc and ¹⁷⁷Lu. Our SPECT design can resolve 7.9 mm rods for ^99mTc (140 keV) and 9.5 mm for ¹⁷⁷Lu (208 keV) in a hot-rod Derenzo phantom with a 3-min exposure and reach an image contrast of 78% for ^99mTc and 57% for ¹⁷⁷Lu using the NEMA IQ phantom with a 6-min exposure. Our modified scatter correction shows an improved contrast-recovery ratio compared to a standard correction. In this paper, we demonstrate the good performance of our design for whole-body imaging purposes. This adds to our previous demonstration of improved qualitative and quantitative ^99mTc imaging of brain perfusion and ¹²³I imaging of dopamine transport with respect to state-of-the-art NaI dual-head cameras. We show that our design provides similar IQ and contrast to the commercial full-ring SPECT VERITON for ^99mTc. Regarding ¹⁷⁷Lu imaging of the 208 keV emissions, our design provides similar contrast to that of other state-of-the-art SPECTs with a significant reduction in exposure. In conclusion, the high sensitivity and extended energy range up to 250 keV makes our SPECT design a promising alternative for clinical imaging and theranostics of emerging radionuclides.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP); National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0012704; R01EB026331; R01EB012965; R01HL135490
• OSTI ID: 2204143
• Report Number(s): BNL-224940-2023-JAAM
• Journal Information: Medical Physics, Vol. 50, Issue 6; ISSN 0094-2405
• Publisher: American Association of Physicists in Medicine
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
SPECT
CZT
full-ring
Monte Carlo simulation
finite element method