Development of novel emission tomography system

In recent years, small animals, such as mice and rats, have been widely used as subjects of study in biomedical research while molecular biology and imaging techniques open new opportunities to investigate disease model. With the help of medical imaging techniques, researchers can investigate underlying mechanisms inside the small animal, which are useful for both early diagnosis and treatment monitoring. Based on tracer principle single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) has increased popularity in small animal imaging due to its higher spatial resolution and variety of single-photon emitting radionuclide. Since the image quality strongly depends on the detector properties, both scintillation and semiconductor detectors are under active investigation for high resolution X-ray and gamma ray photon detection. The desired detector properties include high intrinsic spatial resolution, high energy resolution, and high detection efficiency. In this thesis study, we have made extensive efforts to develop novel emission tomography system, and evaluate the use of both semiconductor and ultra-high resolution scintillation detectors for small animal imaging. This thesis work includes the following three areas. Firstly, we have developed a novel energy-resolved photon counting (ERPC) detector. With the benefits of high energy resolution, high spatial resolution, flexible detection area, and a wide dynamic range of 27-200keV, ERPC detector is well-suited for small animal SPECT applications. For prototype ERPC detector excellent imaging (~350μm) and spectroscopic performance (4keV@Co-57 122keV) has been demonstrated in preliminary study. Secondly, to further improve spatial resolution to hundred-micron level, an ultra-high resolution Intensified EMCCD (I-EMCCD) detector has been designed and evaluated. This detector consists of the newly developed electron multiplying CCD (EMCCD) sensor, columnar CsI(Tl) scintillator, and an electrostatic de-magnifier (DM) tube. The detector offers the combination of an excellent intrinsic spatial resolution, a good signalto- noise ratio (SNR), a large active area, and reasonable detection efficiency over the energy range from 27 to 140 keV. Based on I-EMCCD detector we developed a iii prototype dual-head single photon emission microscope (SPEM) system for mouse imaging. Both phantom and animal imaging experiments have been performed to evaluate system capabilities for ultra-high resolution SPECT imaging. In addition, we have presented a feasibility study of using emission tomography system for synchrotron X-ray fluorescence computer tomography (XFCT). Based on high resolution semiconductor detector and collimation aperture, X-ray fluorescence emission tomography (XFET) can offer more imaging information content by each detected photon and allow less scanning motion, which help to overcome the hurdle for current Xray fluorescence computed tomography (XFCT) and improve imaging speed. CCD-based emission tomography system has been set up at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) for phantom and animal imaging. It has demonstrated that XFET is capable of acquiring 3D element distribution with a greatly improved imaging speed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nuclear Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Fu, Geng

Contributors dc:contributor

• Meng, Ling Jian
• Stubbins, James F.
• Heuser, Brent J.
• Liang, Zhi-Pei

• single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)
• energy-resolved photon counting (ERPC)
• Intensified EMCCD (I-EMCCD)
• single photon emission microscope (SPEM)
• Advanced Photon Source (APS)
• X-ray fluorescence emission tomography (XFET)
• electron multiplying CCD (EMCCD)

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Geng Fu

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26305

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26305