Basic characteristics of a newly developed Si/CdTe Compton camera for medical imaging

新規に開発したシリコンカドテル医用コンプトンカメラによる基礎性能評価

河地 有木; 渡邉 茂樹; 佐藤 隆博; 荒川 和夫; 武田 伸一郎*; 石川 真之介*; 青野 博之*; 渡辺 伸*; 山口 充孝*; 高橋 忠幸*; 島田 博文*; 吉田 由香里*; 鈴木 義行*; 櫻井 英幸*; 中野 隆史*

Kawachi, Naoki; Watanabe, Shigeki; Sato, Takahiro; Arakawa, Kazuo; Takeda, Shinichiro*; Ishikawa, Shinnosuke*; Aono, Hiroyuki*; Watanabe, Shin*; Yamaguchi, Mitsutaka*; Takahashi, Tadayuki*; Shimada, Hirofumi*; Yoshida, Yukari*; Suzuki, Yoshiyuki*; Sakurai, Hideyuki*; Nakano, Takashi*

The Compton camera is a very promising medical imaging system when we consider multiple radionuclide imaging and its sensitivity, portability and compactness. We have developed a Compton camera by using Si and CdTe semiconductors for medical imaging. The prototype Compton camera head consists of a double-sided Si strip detector (DSSD) module as the scatter detector and four layered 16 CdTe pixel detector modules as the absorber detector. The DSSD has an area of 2.562.56 cm, a thickness of 500 m and a strip pitch of 400 m. The CdTe pixel detector has an area of 1.351.35 cm, a thickness of 500 m and a pixel size of 1.35 mm. The high-energy resolution detectors (DSSD: E/E2.5%, CdTe: E/E1%) enable detect the Compton scatter events of the incident -rays, in consequence image radioactive multi-nuclide tracer. We evaluated distributions of sensitivity and spatial resolution, and rat study was performed with three tracers (In, I, Cu) concurrently-administered. As results, lines of point-source data indicated 4 mm spatial resolution in the center of field of view (FOV) in this experimental design, and a characteristic manner of the distributions in the Compton camera FOV was shown. The nuclides in the rat body were distinguished by the -ray energies, each tracer imaged separately in vivo, and the difference in distribution among the nuclide was visualized successfully.