Speaker
Dr
Roberto Pani
(representing the INFN ECORAD collaboration, INFN Roma1, 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome)
Description
Over the last five years, INFN has been studying the potential of LaBr3:Ce scintillation crystals for nuclear medicine application. The continuous improvement of each generation of crystals has resulted in the fabrication of detectors with excellent imaging characteristics at 140 keV with detection efficiencies between 70 and 90%, with energy resolution of 7%, with intrinsic spatial resolutions ranging between 1.5 mm and 0.8 mm, and with very good position linearity over the full FoVs of the detectors. Detector FoVs from 25 cm2 to 150 cm2 have been investigated. LaBr3:Ce is very promising as a candidate for use in small FoV imagers, in particular, for use in devices in the field of intra-operative single-photon emission imaging. Although the potential is good for LaBr3:Ce to improve visual quality and quantitative accuracy of radionuclide imaging in small FoV gamma cameras, it remains that radionuclide imaging intrinsically lacks anatomic cues that are needed to localize or stage disease and typically has poorer statistical and spatial characteristics than anatomic imaging methods. Functional and anatomic information need to be considered together if one wants to give meaning to a small photon emission image and obtain a more reliable diagnosis. Toward this end, the INFN ECORAD collaboration plans to develop a dual-modality compact camera that will acquire ultrasound and scintigraphic images. Among the technologies that can provide anatomical information, ultrasound is a cost-effective and reliable technology. Further, ultrasound probes are among the most common portable devices. All of these factors provide motivation for the development of a new imaging approach that combines functional data from compact gamma cameras with structural data from ultrasound technology.
Author
Dr
Roberto Pani
(representing the INFN ECORAD collaboration, INFN Roma1, 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome)
