NUKLEONIKA 2009, 54(1):33-38

 


PRELIMINARY DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF A SPHERICAL BRAIN PET SYSTEM (SBPET) WITH LIQUID XENON AS SCINTILLATOR



Nayerehalsadat Mortazavi Moghaddam1, Alireza Karimian2,
Seyed M. Mostajaboddavati1, Eric Vondervoort3, Vesna Sossi3

1 Physics Department, University of Isfahan, Hezar jerib Ave.,
P. O. Box 81745-319, Isfahan, Iran
2 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Isfahan,
Postal code: 81744, Isfahan, Iran
3 Brain Research Centre, UBC Hospital, University of British Columbia,
2211 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, Canada

Preliminary design of a spherical brain PET (SBPET) using liquid xenon (LXe) as detector is considered in this research work. The major advantage of a spherical design is the large solid angle of acceptance which improves the sensitivity and increases signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the image. The use of a liquid active medium enabled us to design a spherical detector. LXe, due to the intrinsic physical properties, is an excellent liquid medium for accurate tracking of gamma rays in the relevant energy range. The performance of SBPET was evaluated by Monte Carlo simulation tools (GATE) and compared to ECAT HRRT. The numerical results showed the SBPET has a sensitivity of 1.14% and spatial resolution of ~2.7 mm FWHM which is superior to ECAT HRRT especially at high-count rates.

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