ENLARGED DETECTOR ROTATING RING ARRAY PET SCANNER

摘要

A greatly reduced number of scintillation crystal/PMT gamma ray detectors (200/202) are employed in a ring array about a PET image volume (212). Because of the relatively small numer of such detectors, the complexity and expense of associated electronic signal processing channels is greatly reduced (even if each such channel is provided with sophisticated time of flight capabilities). Similarly, because relatively fewer crystals are employed, it becomes possible to use much larger and faster response time scintillation crystals (200) so as to greatly increase gamma ray detection efficiency and scatter rejection while also permitting the electronic circuits (204) to better reject random events and to provide effective time of light image data filtering. By providing a successively offset collimation aperture (206) for each successive(ly) detector (200) of the ring array and by rotating (300) the array through a larger number of successive view angle positions, it is nevertheless possible to acquire extremely high resolution image data with a greatly reduced system cost.