Brain scan using an ultra fast cadmium-zinc-telluride gamma camera

2513 Objectives Cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) gamma camera has recently gained increasing applications exclusively in nuclear cardiac imaging due to its superior high sensitivity and better spatial resolution. However, its expansion in other applications in nuclear imaging has been limited due to the unique fixed 90 deg gantry configuration and limited energy spectrum range(up to 175 keV). This work was designed to explore the feasibility of utilizing a CZT γ-camera in brain studies. Methods A 3D Huffman brain phantom, filled with either Tl201 or Tc99m, was scanned on a CZT γ-camera, which has been dedicated to nuclear cardiac imaging. The phantom was positioned within a limited scanning field of view which is defined by camera’s fixed 90 deg gantry configuration. Images were acquired in list mode to obtain a total 6 M counts in just few min. The images were reconstructed into a matrix of 128x128 using Iterative Reconstruction without attenuation correction. The same phantom was also scanned on a conventional SPECT gamma (Anger) camera for comparison. Results The images are shown in the Figure for the 3D brain phantom filled with Tl201. The results show the images without any truncation to the subject which indicates that it is feasible to utilize a CZT γ-camera in brain scans even though the scanning field of view is limited due to the fixed 90 deg gantry configuration. Conclusions The results clearly show the advantages of CZT γ-camera over a conventional SPECT camera:1). Higher sensitivity. The result in this work yielded even higher counts in a 6min scan than that in a 45 min scan by a conventional SPECT camera; 2) Better spatial resolution: 5.0mm vs. 15 mm for a conventional SPECT camera, which means using a CZT γ-camera in brain scan can shorten the scanning time significantly without sacrificing the image quality. Consequently, shorter scanning time will reduce the discomfort to the patients and further reduce the image artifacts due to patient’s motion. It could also mean to potentially reduce the dose and radiation exposure to the patients.