PET camera performance design evaluation for BGO and BaF/sub 2/ scintillators (non-time-of-flight)
Bismuth germanate (BGO) and barium fluoride (BaF/sub 2/) scintillators are presently used in positron emission tomegraphy (PET) cameras. This study evaluates the important PET performance parameters of image resolution, true sensitivity, scatter background, accidental background, and realistic maximum radioactivity in the field of view for both BGO and BaF/sub 2/ in an identical non-time-of-flight, whole-body camera configuration. These performance parameters are evaluated for three phantoms simulating (a) the head, (b) whole-body cross-section and (c) heart/kidney. This study finds that the high stopping power of BGO yields higher sensitivity, higher resolution, less vignetting, better immunity from scattered gamma, and lower accident/true ratio at any dose level. The faster BaF/sub 2/ timing acceptance window is traded off by its vulnerability to noncoincidental scatter-gamma which increases accidental coincidences. The BGO is found to be a better choice for non-time-of-flight systems especially with large objects which produce a lot of noncoincidental scatter-gammas. This study also found that the practical diminishing return maximum activity within the field-of-view is approximately 20-25 mCi for existing conventional cameras.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 5237669
- Journal Information:
- J. Nucl. Med.; (United States), Vol. 29:3
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
POSITRON COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY
PERFORMANCE TESTING
BARIUM FLUORIDES
BISMUTH GERMANATES
GAMMA CAMERAS
SCATTERING
SCINTILLATION COUNTING
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
WHOLE-BODY COUNTING
ALKALINE EARTH METAL COMPOUNDS
BARIUM COMPOUNDS
BISMUTH COMPOUNDS
CAMERAS
COMPUTERIZED TOMOGRAPHY
COUNTING TECHNIQUES
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
EMISSION COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY
FLUORIDES
FLUORINE COMPOUNDS
GERMANATES
GERMANIUM COMPOUNDS
HALIDES
HALOGEN COMPOUNDS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
TESTING
TOMOGRAPHY
550601* - Medicine- Unsealed Radionuclides in Diagnostics