Nuclear Medicine methods have been proposed as a means of imaging primary breast lesions and regional metastatic involvement based on tumor physiology. Recently, the positive predictive value of scintimammography using Tc-99 labelled SestaMIBI has been reported to be as high as 81%, with an associated negative predictive value of 97%. Visualization of small (<1cm) lesions using scintimammography may be complicated, however, by the effects of overlying and underlying background uptake of MIBI in the breast soft tissue and the deterioration of lesion contrast with distance from the gamma camera. For these reasons dedicated compact gamma cameras have been proposed and successfully used. Nevertheless, the detection of very small tumors (< 5-10 mm) is still very difficult. Many parameters affect the breast small tumors detection. The degree of pixellation of both the scintillator and photodetector is critical for the intrinsic position resolution of the detector and for the overall imaging performance. In this paper, we examine the basic imaging properties of systems using arrays of scintillators and pixellated photodetectors. The influence of readout systems is also taken into account. Simulations as well as preliminary experimental results are presented. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.
Scintillator and photodetector array optimization for functional breast imaging / F., Garibaldi; E., Cisbani; S., Colilli; F., Cusanno; F., Giuliani; M., Gricia; M., Lucentini; L., Pierangeli; F., Santavenere; G. M., Urciuoli; Pani, Roberto; Pellegrini, Rosanna; Cinti, Maria Nerina; R., Scafe. - In: NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS & METHODS IN PHYSICS RESEARCH. SECTION A, ACCELERATORS, SPECTROMETERS, DETECTORS AND ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT. - ISSN 0168-9002. - STAMPA. - 497:1(2003), pp. 51-59. (Intervento presentato al convegno 1st Topical Symposium on Functional Breast Imaging with Advanced Detectors tenutosi a ROME, ITALY nel APR 18-21, 2001) [10.1016/s0168-9002(02)01892-2].
Scintillator and photodetector array optimization for functional breast imaging
PANI, Roberto;PELLEGRINI, Rosanna;CINTI, Maria Nerina;
2003
Abstract
Nuclear Medicine methods have been proposed as a means of imaging primary breast lesions and regional metastatic involvement based on tumor physiology. Recently, the positive predictive value of scintimammography using Tc-99 labelled SestaMIBI has been reported to be as high as 81%, with an associated negative predictive value of 97%. Visualization of small (<1cm) lesions using scintimammography may be complicated, however, by the effects of overlying and underlying background uptake of MIBI in the breast soft tissue and the deterioration of lesion contrast with distance from the gamma camera. For these reasons dedicated compact gamma cameras have been proposed and successfully used. Nevertheless, the detection of very small tumors (< 5-10 mm) is still very difficult. Many parameters affect the breast small tumors detection. The degree of pixellation of both the scintillator and photodetector is critical for the intrinsic position resolution of the detector and for the overall imaging performance. In this paper, we examine the basic imaging properties of systems using arrays of scintillators and pixellated photodetectors. The influence of readout systems is also taken into account. Simulations as well as preliminary experimental results are presented. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
