Describe + diagram structure and function of single crystal gamma camera head (9/7)

Describe how an image is formed from the distribution of activity in the patient wrt design
and operation of gamma camera (9/6, 4/5)
Main factors affecting spatial resolution and sensitivity (efficiency) of gamma camera (9/8, 4/5) –
system resolution and sensitivity (9/7)

Principles:
Patient ingests radionuclide which emits gamma rays
Gamma rays cause NaI crystal to release light which is received by the PMT and
results in a charge pulse proportional to the deposited energy.
This charge is then converted to a voltage pulse, with an amplitude proportional
to the deposited energy

Camera Design: Pic Heg p391, Huda 146

Function:
Produce a projection image of the distribution of radioactivity within a patient.

Design: (stacked on top of eachother)

Collimator
Lead plate with thousands of parallel holes which is placed in fornt of the
detector to reject gamma rays that are not 90 degrees. -> improve spatial
resolution (ie same as a grid in general XR)

Scintillator (like a screen)

All planar are made of NaI crystal
At 140keV (energy emitted by Tc), PE in this is 5 times more than compton
Photon strikes the crystal and light is produced.
About 10% of the photons are converted to light.

PMT Array
The light is collected by many photomultiplier tubes. The position is calculated
by the fact that the closest tube will have the highest signal.
The signal is digitized by an ADC.

Spatial Resolution:

Intrinsic Resolution (SR achievable from the detector and electronics alone
without collimator)
- Mainly dictated by number and size of PMT’s (more and smaller -> better SR)
- Crystal thickness - thinner crystal -> better SR but worse detector efficency

System Resolution
- Nucleide dose and time of viewing (high count rates -> poorer SR)
- Collimator size and length
- Distance from the patient (further -> worse SR)
- Reconstruction kernel
- Image matrix size ( larger matrix -> better SR, worse noise)