The role of compact PSPMTs for image quality enhancement in nuclear medicine

Compact gamma cameras based on arrays of compact Position Sensitive Photomultipliers (PSPMTs) (Hamamatsu R7600-C8/12) were recently developed by several research groups. The previous generation of dedicated gamma cameras (5 in. PSPMT) demonstrated the clinical benefit and general diagnostic value for functional breast imaging in comparison with conventional nuclear medicine technique (Anger Camera prone scintimammography and Tc-99m Sestamibi administration). The aim of this paper is to investigate how scintillation material and pixel size of crystal arrays can improve image contrast and tumor SNR values. In this paper we compare tumor Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) results obtained by imagers based on CsI(Tl) and NaI(Tl) array, respectively, by means of a liquid and solid breast phantom. The data collected by NaI(Tl) array show a improvement of SNR values for small tumor size (less than 8 mm). The improvement is also evident in small camera, even though for tumor size less than 6 mm the results are near visibility limit. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved