title: Resolution Properties of a Prototype Continuous Miniature Crystal Element (cMiCE) Scanner.
abstract: Continuous miniature crystal element (cMiCE) detectors are a potentially lower cost alternative for high resolution discrete crystal PET detector designs. We report on performance characteristics of a prototype PET scanner consisting of two cMiCE detector modules. Each cMiCE detector is comprised of a 50 × 50 × 8 mm3LYSO crystal coupled to a 64 channel multi-anode PMT. The cMiCE detectors use a statistics-based positioning method based upon maximum likelihood estimation for event positioning. By this method, cMiCE detectors can also provide some depth of interaction event positioning information. For the prototype scanner, the cMiCE detectors were positioned across from one another on a horizontal gantry with a detector spacing of 10.7 cm. Full tomographic data were collected and reconstructed using single slice rebinning and filtered back projection with no smoothing. The average image resolutions in X (radial), Y (transverse) and Z (axial) were 1.05 ± 0.08 mm, 0.99 ± 0.07 mm, 1.24 ± 0.31 mm FWHM. These initial imaging results from a prototype imaging system demonstrate the outstanding image resolution performance that can be achieved using the potentially lower cost cMiCE detectors.
authors.affiliation: University of Washington Department of Radiology, Seattle, WA USA (phone: 206-543-2084; fax: 206-543-8356; rmiyaoka@u.washington.edu ).
authors.forename: Robert S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Miyaoka
authors.affiliation: University of Washington Department of Physics, Seattle, WA USA ( lixiaoli@u.washington.edu ).
authors.forename: Xiaoli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: University of Washington Department of Radiology, Seattle, WA USA ( wcjh@u.washington.edu ).
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hunter
authors.affiliation: University of Washington Department of Radiology, Seattle, WA USA ( lapierce@u.washington.edu ).
authors.forename: Larry A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Pierce
authors.affiliation: University of Washington Department of Radiology, Seattle, WA USA ( wam2@u.washington.edu ).
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: McDougald
authors.affiliation: Paul E. Kinahan is with the University of Washington Department of Radiology, Seattle, WA USA ( kinahan@uw.edu ).
authors.forename: Paul E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Kinahan
authors.affiliation: University of Washington Department of Radiology, Seattle, WA USA ( tkldog@u.washington.edu ).
authors.forename: Thomas K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Lewellen