Compton camera design optimization for detection efficiency enhancement in Nuclear Medicine
Résumé
Compton cameras have the potential to become an emerging technology in Nuclear Medicine. Previous studies have shown electronic collimation allows a gain in detection efficiency of 20 with respect to standard collimated cameras. In this work, we present ongoing simulation studies for further enhancing detection efficiency. To this end, we simulated with GATE/Geant4 a Compton camera made of a scatterer detector based on the prototype under development by CLaRyS collaboration consisting of double-sided silicon strip detectors and an ideal absorber covering all the sides of the scatterer except the entrance surface.We studied the performance of the camera by varying the number of scatterer layers in a range comprised between 5 and 25 layers separated by a distance of 10 mm between them. The energy resolution was set to 2.5% at 200 keV and the energy threshold was set to 5 keV. True coincidences sorted by event identification were analyzed. Detection efficiency was obtained as the fraction of events that produces a detected coincidence. For comparison purposes, ideal absorption was also considered in
the studied GE Healthcare Infinia collimated camera (HEGP and MEGP collimators). The detection efficiency was approximated by the geometrical efficiency of the collimator, neglecting septal penetration. Monochromatic gamma sources emitting in a range comprised between 140 keV and 511 keV were employed. The source was located at 100 mm from the first layer, in the center of the transverse surface. The same distance was considered from the source to the collimator surface. Preliminary results showed an increase of detection efficiency by a factor 80 (resp 95) compared to the HEGP (resp MEGP) collimator when the Compton camera based on 25 scatterer layers was considered. In the future, we plan to extend the work to the study of spatial resolution and to the comparison with innovative SPECT systems.