The EasyPET: a novel concept for an educational cost-effective positron emission 2D scanner

September 24th, 2021| |CAEN Experiments, Nuclear Imaging - PET, Nuclear Physics and Radioactivity, Nuclear Physics and Radioactivity

The EasyPET concept proposed here, protected under a patent by the University of Aveiro, aims to realize a simple and affordable small dimension Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner. This innovative system is based on a single pair of detectors and a rotating mechanism with two degrees of freedom reproducing the functionalities of an entire PET ring. A 2D imaging prototype has been designed, commissioned and engineered, targeted to high level education for physics, engineering and nuclear medicine students. In this paper the performance of the prototype is reported, with a focus on the imaging capability and on the measurement of the uncertainty in the reconstruction of the source position. In addition, a detailed analysis is dedicated to the slice sensitivity and in particular to the effect of the energy threshold on the coincidence event selection.

An EDUGATE simulation toolkit based on the educational EasyPET

September 24th, 2021| |CAEN Experiments, Nuclear Imaging - PET, Nuclear Physics and Radioactivity, Nuclear Physics and Radioactivity

EasyPET is a new concept of a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner using an innovative acquisition method based on two rotation axes for the movement of detector pairs. Due to its simplicity, it is suitable for education purposes, to teach students about the PET technology and its basic concepts, from the radiation detecting and analogue pulse analysis to the coincidence sorting and image reconstruction. The concept allows achieving high and uniform position resolution over the whole eld of view (FoV), by eliminating parallax errors due to the depth of interaction (DoI), which are typical of ring-based PET systems, so quality images are obtained even without state-of-the-art image reconstruction algorithms. The technology developed at the University of Aveiro with a patent-pending, is licensed to CAEN S.p.A, and included in the educational catalogue of the company. In this work, a simulation toolkit based in the Edugate platform was developed to simulate the EasyPET system. It can simulate all the physical aspects of the product, such us the scanning range, variable Field-of-View (FOV), scintillator energy resolution, coincidence time and energy window, among others. A simple image reconstruction algorithm based on Filtered-back-projection (FBP) is implemented. The toolkit allows a quick analysis in classroom of the simulation results. The platform was also used to study the new EasyPET 3D version, and a simulation of a NEMA NU 4-2008 IQ phantom was performed, demonstrating the capability of the platform not only for education purposes but also for research.

Spatial Resolution

Download printable version Difficult Execution Time Data Analysis Radioactive Sources Yes Yes Hardware setupThis experiment guide is referred to the SP5700 educational kit.Equipment: SP5700 - EasyPETModelSP5700Additional ToolDescriptionEasyPET22Na Radioactive source (recommended: 1/2 inch disc, 10 μCi) Purpose of the experimentEvaluation of the spatial resolution of a PET system composed of two detector modules.FundamentalsThe main goal

Two-dimensional Reconstruction of a Radioactive Source

Download printable version Difficult Execution Time Data Analysis Radioactive Sources No Yes Hardware setupThis experiment guide is referred to the SP5700 educational kit.Equipment: SP5700 - EasyPETModelSP5700Additional ToolDescriptionEasyPET22Na Radioactive source (recommended: 1/2 inch disc, 10 μCi) Purpose of the experimentUnderstanding the technique of the nuclear imaging and the setup optimization of the parameters by performing

Positron Annihilation Detection

Download printable version Difficult Execution Time Data Analysis Radioactive Sources No Yes Hardware setupThis experiment guide is referred to the SP5701 educational kit.Equipment: SP5701 - EasyPET KitModelSP5700DT5770Additional ToolDescriptionEasyPETDesktop Multi-Channel Analyzer22Na Radioactive source (recommended: 1/2 inch disc, 10 μCi) Purpose of the experimentPositron annihilation detection by using a couple of detectors composed of a LYSO

Basic Measurements: γ Spectroscopy and System Linearity

Download printable version   Difficult Execution Time Data Analysis Radioactive Sources Yes Yes Hardware setup This experiment guide is referred to the SP5701 educational kit. Equipment: SP5701 - EasyPET Kit Model SP5700 DT5770 Additional Tool Description EasyPET Desktop Multi-Channel Analyzer 22Na Radioactive source (recommended: 1/2 inch disc, 10 μCi) Purpose of the experiment Gamma