Abstract In recent years, there has been a growing interest in compact and high resolution small gamma cameras for the early detection of breast cancer and thyroid diseases. We proposed a new detector consisting of a trapezoidal-shaped crystal and a position-sensitive photomultiplier tube (PSPMT) to reduce the edge effect. In this study, the imaging performance of the proposed detector was evaluated by DETECT2000 simulation. Trapezoidal-shaped NaI(Tl) and CsI(Tl) crystals were modeled and the 2-dimensional event positions were calculated using Anger-logic. 99mTc (140 keV) and 131I (364 keV) gamma rays were generated on evenly spaced points with 3.0 mm spacing in the X–Y plane starting 1.0 mm away from the corner surface and 10,000 gamma events were simulated at each location. The simulated results demonstrated that all the 99mTc and 131I point sources were clearly identified in the NaI(Tl) crystal. CsI(Tl) crystal could image 131I sources without edge effect but did not distinguish 99mTc points at the periphery region due to low light yield. In conclusion, our new detector with an enlarged FOV without increasing crystal size could be a useful tool in breast as well as thyroid imaging.