Design study of a dedicated head and neck cancer PET system.

Mohan Li,Shiva Abbaszadeh,Brett Yockey

doi:10.1109/trpms.2020.2964293

Abstract

The tumor-involved regions of head and neck cancer (HNC) have complex anatomical structures and vital physiological roles. As a consequence, there is a need for high sensitivity and high spatial resolution dedicated HNC PET scanner. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and optimize system design that includes detecting materials and geometries. For the detecting material, two scanners with the same two-panel geometry based on CZT and LYSO were evaluated. For the system geometry, four CZT scanners with two-panel, lengthened two-panel, four-panel, and full-ring geometries were evaluated. A cylinder phantom with sphere lesions and an XCAT phantom in the head and neck region were simulated. The results showed that the sensitivity of the 40-mm thickness CZT system and the 20-mm thickness LYSO system were comparable. However, the multiple interaction photon events recovery accuracy of the CZT system was about 20% higher. The in-panel and orthogonal-panel spatial resolutions of CZT are 0.58 and 0.74 mm, while those of LYSO are 0.70 and 1.40 mm. For system geometry, the four-panel and full-ring scanners have a higher contrast recovery coefficient (CRC) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) than the two-panel and lengthened two-panel scanners. However, a 5-mm lesion in the XCAT phantom was visualized within 6 min in the two-panel system.

Highlights

H EAD and neck cancer (HNC) accounts for approximately 4% of all cancers in the United States [1] and the overall annual mortality rate is 23% [2]
We evaluated different detecting materials and system geometries through the simulation of a dedicated head and neck cancer (HNC) positron emission tomography (PET) scanner
For comparing the detecting material, the sensitivity of the 40-mm thickness cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) system and the 20-mm LYSO system are 0.60% and 0.69%, and it increases to 2.43% and 2.55%, respectively, after recovering multiple interaction photon events (MIPEs)

Summary

Introduction

H EAD and neck cancer (HNC) accounts for approximately 4% of all cancers in the United States [1] and the overall annual mortality rate is 23% [2]. Whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) and its combination with computed tomography (CT) are commonly used for HNC diagnosis, staging, treatment planning, and assessing response to therapy [3]–[6]. Compared to CT, magnetic resonance imaging, sonographic and histopathological findings, PET imaging shows the highest sensitivity and specificity for detecting lymph node metastases of HNC [7]. Manuscript received September 14, 2019; revised October 23, 2019 and December 30, 2019; accepted January 1, 2020. Date of publication January 3, 2020; date of current version July 2, 2020.

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Conclusion