Overview of today’s lecture

• Nature of nuclear radiation

- Isotopes used in nucl. med.
• Detection methods
• Counting statistics
• Imaging systems
- Planar gamma scintigraphy

The Planar Gamma Camera

Siemens e.cam

1
 Gamma Camera Instrumentation
Typical Gamma Camera
Parameters
acquisition
NaI(Tl) crystal ~ 50cm X 30cm processing
PMTs ~ 7.5 cm (3”) display
30 – 50 PMTs total
Electronics computer
Collimators holes (hex) ~ 2–6mm boards

PMTs

light
guide crystal

collimator

Crystal and light guide

Light
Guide
3/8” thick ~ 9.5 mm

Crystal
NaI(Tl)
Density 3.67 g/cm3
Attenuation
Coefficient µ (@140 keV) 2.64 cm-1 —-> 1-e-(2.64/cm)(0.95cm) = 92%
PE fraction ~80%
Light output 40/keV —-> 40*140 = 5,600 scint. photons
Decay time 230 nsec
Wavelength 410 nm

Light guide distributes scintillation light over PMT array

2
 Light response function versus position
(light sharing —-> spatial resolution)
E
" xi ! Ei Intrinsic spatial
xˆ = i Resolution:
" Ei < 4 mm FWHM
i < PMT size!

x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 x6 x7 x

PMT signals; Ei
PMTs

LG
Crystal

γ absorption creates 1000s of

γ scintillation photons

Spatial Positioning

From: The Essential Physics of Medical Imaging (Bushberg, et al)

3
 Gamma Camera Energy Spectra
Summed signal from all PMTs

Scattered events have changed

direction, hence, they will be
mis-positioned by the image
generation algorithm
---> this tends to diffuse
sources and reduce image
contrast

Energy Windows
• Balance between accepting all good events (importance of sensitivity) and rejecting
scattered events.
• Most gamma cameras can acquire data using multiple energy windows. Allows for
simultaneous imaging of different radioisotopes, for example Tc-99m (140 keV) and
I-131 (364 keV).

Collimators - Septal Penetration

Detector (NaI(Tl))

Collimator
septa, µ
l

d t
6d
Minimum septa thickness, t, µ
t!
for <5% septal penetration: ( )
l " 3µ

From: Physics in Nuclear Medicine (Cherry, Sorenson and Phelps)

4
 Collimator Efficiency
Collimators typically absorb well over 99.95% of all photons
incident on them.

Trade-off between spatial resolution (small collimator holes)

and detection efficiency (large collimator holes).

Hexagonal holes: good symmetry, good packing fraction,

foil fabrication ---> 2 /6 are double walls

Collimator Resolution

From: The Essential Physics of Medical Imaging (Bushberg, et al)

5
 Gamma Camera - spatial resolution

Rs = (Ri2 + Rc2 )

From: Physics in Nuclear Medicine (Cherry, Sorenson and Phelps)

Types of Collimators

magnification

6
 Collimator: Resolution and Sensitivity

From: Physics in Nuclear Medicine (Cherry, Sorenson and Phelps)

Collimator: Resolution and Sensitivity

From: The Essential Physics of Medical Imaging (Bushberg, et al)

7
 The Scintillation Camera:
Corrections and QA

Gamma Camera Processing Electronics

(energy correction)

Energy channel vs. event location

19 8 9 6 104

5 104

18 7 2 10 4 104
Counts

3 104
17 6 1 3 11
2 104
10% ER (between)
10% ER (over)
1 104
16 5 4 12
0
0 50 100 150 200
energy (keV)
15 14 13

8
 Gamma Camera Processing Electronics
(with and without energy correction)

Gamma Camera Processing Electronics

(linearity correction)

19 8 9

18 7 2 10

17 6 1 3 11

16 5 4 12

15 14 13

From: Physics in Nuclear Medicine (Cherry, Sorenson and Phelps)

9
 Gamma Camera Processing Electronics
(linearity correction)

Additional Gamma Camera Corrections

(sensitivity / uniformity)

Acquired from long uniform flood after energy

and linearity corrections have been applied

Multiplicative correction

Adjusts for slight variation in the detection

efficiency of the crystal

Compensates for small defects or damage to

the collimator

Should not be used to correct for large

irregularities

10
 Daily Gamma Camera QA Tests

Flood uniformity

Photopeak window
From: The Essential Physics of Medical Imaging (Bushberg, et al)

Multienergy spatial registration

(e.g., Ga-67 (93-, 185-, and 300 keV) gamma rays)

properly adjusted improperly adjusted

From: The Essential Physics of Medical Imaging (Bushberg, et al)

11
 Pulse Pile-up

Pile-up in image

Energy spectra
From: Physics in Nuclear Medicine (Sorenson and Phelps) and (Cherry, Sorenson and Phelps)

Image Acquisition
• Frame mode (data stored as an image)
- static
- single image acquisition
- can have multiple energy windows
- dynamic
- series of images acquired sequentially
- gated
- repetitive, dynamic imaging
- used for cardiac imaging
• List-mode (data stored event by event)
- time stamps are included within data stream
- allows for flexible post-acquisition binning
- can result in very large data files

12
 Region of Interest (ROI) and Time-Activity
Curves (TAC)

From: The Essential Physics of Medical Imaging (Bushberg, et al)

Example Clinical Images

To evaluate the hyperparathyroidism double phase technetium-99m sestamibi

parathyroid scintigraphy was performed.
Parathyroid Scintigraphy was performed 20 minutes and 2 hours after injection of
technetium-99m-sestamibi.
The 20 minute scan showed uptake in a normal appearing thyroid gland
as well as uptake in two ovoid areas in the upper mediastinum.
The 2 hour image showed wash out of activity from the thyroid, and persistence of
activity in the upper mediastinum

13
Example Clinical Images

Collimator artifacts
(from high energy gammas
- 364 keV)

131Iuptake in primary differentiated

thyroid carcinoma (arrow) and in rib
and pelvic metastases (arrowheads)

99mTc-MDP bone scintigraphy demonstrating

multi-focal increased uptake due to skeletal
metastases from a renal carcinoma – note
right nephrectomy

Example Clinical Images

99mTc-MIBI scintimammography (supine

and prone left lateral views) showing a
primary tumor in the left breast (arrow)
and axillary lymph node metastases
(arrowhead)

14
 Example Clinical Images
whole body
renal excretion

99mTc
201Tl

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