Design consideration of compact cardiac TOF-PET systems: a simulation study

Area of Science:

• Nuclear medicine
• Medical imaging physics

Background:

• Myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is essential for managing coronary artery disease.
• Enhancing PET system sensitivity can significantly improve the diagnostic value of MPI.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the benefits of novel elliptical and D-shape PET detector geometries for cardiac imaging.
• To investigate the impact of scatter components on cardiac PET image quality with these new geometries.

Main Methods:

• Modeled four time-of-flight (TOF) PET systems (conventional cylinder, compact ellipse, compact D-shape) using Geant4.
• Measured spatial resolution and sensitivity with point sources.
• Assessed noise equivalent count rate and image quality using an anthropomorphic digital chest phantom.

Main Results:

• Proposed elliptical and D-shape geometries demonstrated higher sensitivity and better count rate performance with fewer detectors compared to conventional cylindrical systems.
• Increased scatter intensity was identified as a significant factor negatively impacting contrast in defect regions within compact geometries.

Conclusions:

• Novel compact PET geometries offer advantages in sensitivity and efficiency for cardiac imaging.
• Mitigating the effects of increased scatter is critical for developing high-performance compact cardiac TOF PET systems.