Smv America, Inc.

William K Mc Croskey

David S Vickers

Christ H Heipp

A gamma camera is modified to perform PET studies as well as SPECT studies by utilization of the camera's SPECT electronics to likewise generate triggering pulse signals for photons indicative of a positron annihilation event which are corrected, on a bundled basis, for position, linearity and uniformity by the same digital processors used by the camera for SPECT studies. In addition the triggering pulse signals generate analog timing signals passed through a coarse coincidence circuit to establish matched pairs of timing signals which are digitally time stamped and processed along with the bundled set of pulse signals that the timing signals originated from. The timing signals in turn are corrected from a mapped detector head look up table on the basis of the corrected position of the triggering pulse signal and the time lag between each matched timing signal pair passed through a fine coincidence window processor thus insuring that the line of response passing through the corrected, precisely established positions of scintillations that produced the triggering pulse signals occurred within a time period clearly indicative of a positron annihilation event. By counting only true LORs images having high resolution can be constructed even though the camera's detecting heads cover a limited solid angle of event detections. The timing correction table is generated from an improved calibration technique which factors out those inherent time delays, including signal noise and jitter, which are specific to that gamma camera.

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Solon, OH, United States of America

William K Mc Croskey