Comparison of pinhole collimator materials based on sensitivity equivalence

Pinhole SPECT often provides an excellent resolution sensitivity trade-off for radionuclide imaging compared to SPECT with parallel holes, particularly when imaging small experimental animals like rodents. High absorption pinhole materials are often chosen because of their low edge penetration and therefore good system resolution. Capturing more photons in the edges however results in decreased system sensitivity if the pinhole diameter remains the same, which may partly undo the beneficial effect on the resolution. In the search for an optimal trade-off we have compared pinhole projection data and reconstructed images of different materials with pinhole aperture diameters adjusted to obtain equal sensitivity. Monte Carlo calculations modeling the transmission, penetration and scattering of gamma radiation in single pinholes of uranium, gold, tungsten and lead were performed for a range of pinhole opening angles, diameters and gamma ray energies. In addition, reconstructed images of a hot rod phantom were determined for a multipinhole SPECT system and for a system that can image the 511 keV annihilation photons of positron emitting tracers with clustered pinholes. Our results indicate that, under the condition of equal sensitivity, tungsten and for SPECT also lead pinholes perform just as well as gold and uranium ones, indicating that a significant cost reduction can be achieved in pinhole collimator manufacturing while the use of rare or impractical materials can be avoided.