47 GOALS AND CHALLENGES OF THE ENDOTOFPET-US FP7 PROJECT

Abstract

EndoTOFPET-US is an approved European FP7 multidisciplinary project involving an international collaboration of 6 academic institutions (CERN, DESY, Delft Technical University, Lisbon LIP laboratory, University of Heidelberg, University Milano Biccoca), 3 university hospitals (Marseilles Timone, Lausanne CHUV, Minich Technical University hospital) and 3 companies (Fibercryst, KLOE, Surgiceye). The main clinical objective is the development of new biomarkers for the pancreatic cancer and more generally image-guided diagnosis and minimally invasive surgery. In the frame of this project it is proposed to design and build one prototype of a bimodal PET-US (Positron Emission Tomography and Ultrasound) endoscopic probe combining in a miniaturized system a fully digital, 200ps time resolution Time of Flight PET detector head (TOF-PET) coupled to a commercial ultrasound (US) assisted biopsy endoscope and to launch a pilot clinical study focusing on pancreatic cancer, after a first step of preclinical feasibility tests on pigs. As an example of novel development of biomarkers, promising antibodies already developed for pancreatic cancer will be pushed towards clinical application. In order to achieve this very ambitious goal this project will implement a number of novel technologies, among which a new generation of fully digital SiPM photodetectors with single optical photon counting capability, a very compact diffractive optics coupling system between the crystal and the photodetector to compensate for the reduced fill-factor of the later, a low noise time over threshold front end electronics based on the NINO chip developed at CERN for the LHC ALICE experiment and an elaborate tracking system to reconstruct in real time the six coordinates of the internal endoscopic probe and the external plate of the PET detection system. First performance results of these different components will be presented, including an impressive coincidence time resolution of 155 to 210ps FWHM obtained with crystals of realistic dimensions for the PET (for a length ranging between 5mm and 20mm respectively) using the NINO electronics and a commercial, not yet digital SIPM photodetector. The possible implementation of such techniques in an on-line dose monitoring PET system in hadrontherapy machines will be discussed. * corresponding author e-mail: paul.lecoq@cern.ch