General Electric Company

Elgems Ltd.

Ge Medical Systems Israel, Ltd

Leonid Tsukerman

Yaron Hefetz

Jean-Paul Bouhnik

Ira Micah Blevis

Floribertus P M Heukensfeldt Jansen

Ira Belvis

Ira Blevis

Methods and systems for controlling movement of detectors having multiple detector heads are provided. One system includes a gantry, a patient support structure supporting a patient table thereon, and a plurality of detector units. At least some of the detector units are rotatable to position the detector units at different angles relative to the patient table. The imaging system further includes a detector position controller configured to control the position of the rotatable detector units, wherein at least some of the rotatable detector units positioned adjacent to each other have an angle of rotation to allow movement of the rotatable detector units a distance greater than a gap between adjacent rotatable detector units. The detector position controller is configured to calculate at least one of field of view avoidance information or collision avoidance information to determine an amount of movement for one or more of the rotatable detector units.

Methods and systems for controlling movement of detectors having multiple detector heads

A method is provided including identifying a target portion of a patient corresponding to a portion of interest of the patient to be scanned with a nuclear medicine scanning technique. The method also includes applying an uptake increasing technique to at least one of the target portion or an application portion of the patient other than the target portion. The uptake increasing technique is configured to increase uptake of a radiopharmaceutical to the target portion of the patient relative to portions of the patient other than the target portion. Also, the method includes administering the radiopharmaceutical to the patient temporally proximate to the applying an uptake increasing technique.

Systems and methods for forced non-uniform radiopharmaceutical uptake

Methods and systems for controlling movement of detectors having multiple detector heads are provided. One system includes a gantry, a patient support structure supporting a patient table thereon, and a plurality of detector units. At least some of the detector units are rotatable to position the detector units at different angles relative to the patient table. The imaging system further includes a detector position controller configured to control the position of the rotatable detector units, wherein at least some of the rotatable detector units positioned adjacent to each other have an angle of rotation to allow movement of the rotatable detector units a distance greater than a gap between adjacent rotatable detector units The detector position controller is configured to calculate at least one of field of view avoidance information or collision avoidance information to determine an amount of movement for one or more of the rotatable detector units.

A SPECT detector system includes a plurality of detector units. Each detector unit includes a plurality of detector elements disposed in fixed positions with respect to one another. The detector units are adjustably positioned with respect to one another around a detector arc, which is placed adjacent to a patient.

Adjustable spect detector

Systems and methods for nuclear medicine (NM) imaging using different radiopharmaceuticals are provided. One method includes generating images of a region of interest (ROI) from radioactive emissions from a localization radiopharmaceutical to position the ROI in a field-of-view (FOV) of a gamma camera based on the generated images of the ROI. The method further includes performing an imaging scan of the ROI using an imaging radiopharmaceutical to acquire image data of the ROI, wherein the imaging radiopharmaceutical is different than the localization radiopharmaceutical.

Systems and methods for patient positioning for nuclear medicine imaging

Methods and systems for calibrating a nuclear medicine imaging system are provided. One method includes acquiring spatially determined non-uniform radiation flux information from a calibration scan of a calibration source using a gamma camera having an attached non-parallel-hole collimator. The method further includes determining a measured non-uniform count density profile from the acquired non-uniform radiation flux information. The method also includes creating a gamma camera uniformity correction map derived from (i) the measured non-uniform count density profile and (ii) a modeled or calculated non-uniform count density profile for calibrating the NM imaging system.

Methods and systems for calibrating a nuclear medicine imaging system

An apparatus and methods for calibrating pixelated detectors are provided. A method includes acquiring energy response data for a plurality of pixels of the pixelated semiconductor radiation detector and performing at least one of energy calibration and sensitivity calibration on each of the plurality of pixels based on the acquired energy response data.

Apparatus and methods for calibrating pixelated detectors

A hand gamma camera system for generating an image of a gamma radiation source, the camera including a housing designed to be hand held, a gamma radiation image detector mounted on or in the housing that generates detection data responsive to radiation data from a gamma source incident on the radiation detector, a controller connected to the radiation detector that receives the detection data and generates image data and a display mounted on or in the housing that receives the image data from the controller and generates an image.

Gamma camera

A hand gamma camera system for generating an image of a gamma radiation source, said camera comprising a housing designed to be hand held, a gamma radiation image detector mounted on or in said housing that generates detection data responsive to radiation data from a gamma source incident on said radiation detector, a controller connected to said radiation detector that receives said detection data and generates image data and a display mounted on or in said housing that receives said image data from said controller and generates an image.

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Q. Mozkin, Israel

Leonid Tsukerman