PET-based geometrical calibration of a pinhole SPECT add-on for an animal PET scanner

Phys Med Biol. 2013 Apr 7;58(7):2011-25. doi: 10.1088/0031-9155/58/7/2011. Epub 2013 Mar 4.

Abstract

We developed SPECT imaging capability on an animal PET scanner to provide a cost effective option for animal SPECT imaging. The SPECT add-on sub-system was enabled by mechanically integrating a multiple-pinhole collimator in the PET detector ring. This study introduces a method to calibrate the geometrical parameters of the SPECT add-on using the PET imaging capability of the scanner. The proposed PET imaging-based calibration method consists of two steps: (1) paint the pinhole apertures of the collimator with a positron emitting radioactive solution; and (2) image the collimator inside the scanner in PET mode. The geometrical parameters of the multi-pinhole SPECT add-on can then be derived directly from a set of PET images by simple linear calculation and used in defining the SPECT system. The method was compared to our implementation of a SPECT calibration approach with model-based fitting of SPECT projection data. The procedure for carrying out the PET imaging-based calibration method is simpler and faster than that of our implementation of the SPECT model-based calibration method. Since it does not require model fitting, the uniqueness of the calibration result is warranted. Better quality SPECT images were reconstructed using the PET-derived calibration parameters rather than our implementation of the SPECT model-based calibration parameters. We conclude that the proposed PET imaging-based calibration method provides a highly effective means for enabling SPECT imaging on a PET scanner.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Calibration
  • Female
  • Mice
  • Phantoms, Imaging
  • Positron-Emission Tomography / instrumentation*
  • Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / instrumentation*