TY  - INPR
Y1  - 2022/11/18/
JF  - IEEE Transactions on Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences
ID  - discovery10160866
A1  - Erlandsson, Kjell
A1  - Wirth, Andras
A1  - Thielemans, Kris
A1  - Baistow, Ian
A1  - Cherlin, Alexander
A1  - Hutton, Brian F
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1109/TRPMS.2022.3223129
PB  - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
N1  - This version is the author accepted manuscript. This work was supported by an Innovate UK grant awarded to Kromek (104296). INM staff are partly funded by the NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.
TI  - Design of a low-dose, stationary, tomographic Molecular Breast Imaging system using 3D position sensitive CZT detectors
KW  - Detectors
KW  -  Phantoms
KW  -  Lesions
KW  -  Collimators
KW  -  Tomography
KW  -  Image reconstruction
KW  -  Breast
AV  - public
N2  - Molecular Breast Imaging (MBI) has been shown to have high sensitivity for lesion detection, particularly in patients with dense breasts where conventional mammography is limited. However, relatively high radiation dose and long imaging time are limiting factors. Most current MBI systems are based on planar imaging. Improved performance can be achieved using tomographic techniques, which normally involve detector motion. Our goal is to develop a low-dose stationary tomographic MBI system with similar or better performance in terms of lesion detection compared to planar MBI. The proposed system utilizes two opposing CZT detectors with high intrinsic resolution and depth of interaction (DOI) capability, combined with densely packed multi-pinhole collimators. This leads to improved efficiency and adequate angular sampling, but also to significant multiplexing (MX), which can result in artefacts. We have developed de-MX algorithms that take advantage of the DOI information. We have performed both analytic and Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate the feasibility, optimize the design and investigate the expected performance of the proposed system. Lesion detectability was preserved with reduction of acquisition time (or radiation dose) by a factor of 2 compared to planar images at the lowest reported dose. The first prototype is under evaluation at Kromek.
ER  -