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 No Yes Equipment SP5700/701 - EasyPET  22Na Radioactive source (recommended: 1/2 inch disc, 10 μCi) Purpose of the experiment Evaluation of the spatial resolution of a PET system composed of two detector modules. The main goal of the PET studies is to obtain

Two-dimensional Reconstruction of a Radioactive Source

Download printable version Difficult Execution Time Data Analysis Radioactive Sources No Yes Equipments SP5700/701 - EasyPET  22Na Radioactive source (recommended: 1/2 inch disc, 10 μCi) Purpose of the experiment Understanding the technique of the nuclear imaging and the setup optimization of the parameters by performing two-dimensional image reconstruction of 22Na radioactive source. Fundamentals

Positron Annihilation Detection

Download printable version Difficult Execution Time Data Analysis Radioactive Sources No Yes Equipment SP5700/701 - EasyPET  22Na Radioactive source (recommended: 1/2 inch disc, 10 μCi) Purpose of the experiment Positron annihilation detection by using a couple of detectors composed of a LYSO scintillating crystal coupled to a Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM). Fundamentals The underlying

Basic Measurements: γ Spectroscopy and System Linearity

Download printable version DifficultExecution TimeData AnalysisRadioactive SourcesNoYes Equipments SP5701 - EasyPET  22Na Radioactive source (recommended: 1/2 inch disc, 10 μCi) Purpose of the experiment Gamma spectroscopy studies by using a gamma radioactive sources and by analysing the signals produced by the interaction of the gamma with one of the scintillating crystals of the system.