Monte Carlo Characterization of the Trimage Brain PET System.

Luigi Masturzo,Matteo Morrocchi,Giancarlo Sportelli,Pietro Carra,Nicola Belcari,Alessandro Pilleri,Paola Anna Erba

doi:10.3390/jimaging8020021

Abstract

The TRIMAGE project aims to develop a brain-dedicated PET/MR/EEG (Positron Emission Tomography/Magnetic Resonance/Electroencephalogram) system that is able to perform simultaneous PET, MR and EEG acquisitions. The PET component consists of a full ring with 18 sectors. Each sector includes three square detector modules based on dual sstaggered LYSO:Ce matrices read out by SiPMs. Using Monte Carlo simulations and following NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) guidelines, image quality procedures have been applied to evaluate the performance of the PET component of the system. The performance are reported in terms of spatial resolution, uniformity, recovery coefficient, spill over ratio, noise equivalent count rate (NECR) and scatter fraction. The results show that the TRIMAGE system is at the top of the current brain PET technologies.

Highlights

Over the past 40 years, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) brain imaging has allowed unique insights into brain function under normal conditions and in disease states [1]
We showed the results of the brain PET component developed for TRIMAGE
A direct comparison can be done with the CareMiBrain (7%), MINDview (7%) and Won et al scanner (6.9%), as they evaluated the sensitivity following the same standard used in this paper

Summary

Introduction

Over the past 40 years, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) brain imaging has allowed unique insights into brain function under normal conditions and in disease states [1]. Damage to neuronal function and reduced energy metabolism occur. 18F-FDG is the most widely used radiopharmaceutical, it is not the ideal tracer for brain imaging, owing to its high physiological cortical uptake and lack of specificity. This has opened the way for the introduction of several novel radiotracers, each with their own inherent strengths and limitations [2,3] that can increase the potential of brain imaging. The present and future availability of the new radiotracers have raised a new interest in brain-dedicated PET systems, especially if combined with magnetic resonance (MR), having superior performance than whole body systems

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion