Preliminary results of a prototype C-shaped PET designed for an in-beam PET system

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment, 2016-06, Vol.822, p.57-62
• Main Authors: Kim, Hyun-Il, Chung, Yong Hyun, Lee, Kisung, Kim, Kyeong Min, Kim, Yongkwon, Joung, Jinhun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: C-shaped scanner; Design analysis; Detectors; Modules; Monte Carlo simulation; NEMA standard; Particle beams; Particle therapy; Positron emission; Positron emission tomography; Scanners; Therapy; Tomography
• ISSN: 0168-9002; 1872-9576
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2016.03.021

Positron emission tomography (PET) can be utilized in particle beam therapy to verify the dose distribution of the target volume as well as the accuracy of the treatment. We present an in-beam PET scanner that can be integrated into a particle beam therapy system. The proposed PET scanner consisted of 14 detector modules arranged in a C-shape to avoid blockage of the particle beam line by the detector modules. Each detector module was composed of a 9×9 array of 4.0mm×4.0mm×20.0mm LYSO crystals optically coupled to four 29-mm-diameter PMTs using the photomultiplier-quadrant-sharing (PQS) technique. In this study, a Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission (GATE) simulation study was conducted to design a C-shaped PET scanner and then experimental evaluation of the proposed design was performed. The spatial resolution and sensitivity were measured according to NEMA NU2-2007 standards and were 6.1mm and 5.61cps/kBq, respectively, which is in good agreement with our simulation, with an error rate of 12.0%. Taken together, our results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed C-shaped in-beam PET system, which we expect will be useful for measuring dose distribution in particle therapy.