title: Development and characterization of a round hand-held silicon photomultiplier based gamma camera for intraoperative imaging.
abstract: This paper describes the development of a hand-held gamma camera for intraoperative surgical guidance that is based on silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) technology. The camera incorporates a cerium doped lanthanum bromide (LaBr3:Ce) plate scintillator, an array of 80 SiPM photodetectors and a two-layer parallel-hole collimator. The field of view is circular with a 60 mm diameter. The disk-shaped camera housing is 75 mm in diameter, approximately 40.5 mm thick and has a mass of only 1.4 kg, permitting either hand-held or arm-mounted use. All camera components are integrated on a mobile cart that allows easy transport. The camera was developed for use in surgical procedures including determination of the location and extent of primary carcinomas, detection of secondary lesions and sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB). Here we describe the camera design and its principal operating characteristics, including spatial resolution, energy resolution, sensitivity uniformity, and geometric linearity. The gamma camera has an intrinsic spatial resolution of 4.2 mm FWHM, an energy resolution of 21.1 % FWHM at 140 keV, and a sensitivity of 481 and 73 cps/MBq when using the single- and double-layer collimators, respectively.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 USA. He is now with the Department of Physics and Optical Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN 47807 USA.
authors.forename: Kosta
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Popovic
authors.affiliation: Radiation Detector & Imaging Group in Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, VA, 23606 USA.
authors.forename: Jack E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: McKisson
authors.affiliation: Radiation Detector & Imaging Group in Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, VA, 23606 USA.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kross
authors.affiliation: Radiation Detector & Imaging Group in Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, VA, 23606 USA.
authors.forename: Seungjoon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Radiation Detector & Imaging Group in Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, VA, 23606 USA.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McKisson
authors.affiliation: Radiation Detector & Imaging Group in Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, VA, 23606 USA.
authors.forename: Andrew G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Weisenberger
authors.affiliation: AiT Instruments, Newport News, VA, 23606, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Proffitt
authors.affiliation: Center for Advanced Research, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 23506 USA.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stolin
authors.affiliation: Center for Advanced Research, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 23506 USA. He is now with the Department of Radiology and Medical Imaging, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA.
authors.forename: Stan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Majewski
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology and Medical Imaging, Department of Physics, and Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22908.
authors.forename: Mark B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Williams
keywords: Biomedical imaging; Gamma-ray detectors; Instrumentation and measurement