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Main Authors: Meißner, Tobias, Cerbone, Laura Antonia, Russo, Paolo, Nahm, Werner, Hesser, Jürgen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.10633
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author Meißner, Tobias
Cerbone, Laura Antonia
Russo, Paolo
Nahm, Werner
Hesser, Jürgen
author_facet Meißner, Tobias
Cerbone, Laura Antonia
Russo, Paolo
Nahm, Werner
Hesser, Jürgen
contents Purpose: Handheld gamma cameras with coded aperture collimators are under investigation for intraoperative imaging in nuclear medicine. Coded apertures are a promising collimation technique for applications such as lymph node localization due to their high sensitivity and the possibility of 3D imaging. We evaluated the axial resolution and computational performance of two reconstruction methods. Methods: An experimental gamma camera was set up consisting of the pixelated semiconductor detector Timepix3 and MURA mask of rank $31$ with round holes of $0.08$mm in diameter in a $0.11$mm thick Tungsten sheet. A set of measurements was taken where a point-like gamma source was placed centrally at $21$ different positions within the range of $12$ to $100$mm. For each source position, the detector image was reconstructed in $0.5$mm steps around the true source position, resulting in an image stack. The axial resolution was assessed by the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) profile along the z-axis of the stack. Two reconstruction methods were compared: MURA Decoding and a 3D maximum likelihood expectation maximization algorithm (3D-MLEM). Results: While taking $4{,}400$ times longer in computation, 3D-MLEM yielded a smaller axial FWHM and a higher CNR. The axial resolution degraded from $5.3$mm and $1.8$mm at $12$mm to $42.2$mm and $13.5$mm at $100$mm for MURA Decoding and 3D-MLEM respectively. Conclusion: Our results show that the coded aperture enables the depth estimation of single point-like sources in the near field. Here, 3D-MLEM offered a better axial resolution but was computationally much slower than MURA Decoding, whose reconstruction time is compatible with real-time imaging.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_10633
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Assessment of the Axial Resolution of a Compact Gamma Camera with Coded Aperture Collimator
Meißner, Tobias
Cerbone, Laura Antonia
Russo, Paolo
Nahm, Werner
Hesser, Jürgen
Medical Physics
Purpose: Handheld gamma cameras with coded aperture collimators are under investigation for intraoperative imaging in nuclear medicine. Coded apertures are a promising collimation technique for applications such as lymph node localization due to their high sensitivity and the possibility of 3D imaging. We evaluated the axial resolution and computational performance of two reconstruction methods. Methods: An experimental gamma camera was set up consisting of the pixelated semiconductor detector Timepix3 and MURA mask of rank $31$ with round holes of $0.08$mm in diameter in a $0.11$mm thick Tungsten sheet. A set of measurements was taken where a point-like gamma source was placed centrally at $21$ different positions within the range of $12$ to $100$mm. For each source position, the detector image was reconstructed in $0.5$mm steps around the true source position, resulting in an image stack. The axial resolution was assessed by the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) profile along the z-axis of the stack. Two reconstruction methods were compared: MURA Decoding and a 3D maximum likelihood expectation maximization algorithm (3D-MLEM). Results: While taking $4{,}400$ times longer in computation, 3D-MLEM yielded a smaller axial FWHM and a higher CNR. The axial resolution degraded from $5.3$mm and $1.8$mm at $12$mm to $42.2$mm and $13.5$mm at $100$mm for MURA Decoding and 3D-MLEM respectively. Conclusion: Our results show that the coded aperture enables the depth estimation of single point-like sources in the near field. Here, 3D-MLEM offered a better axial resolution but was computationally much slower than MURA Decoding, whose reconstruction time is compatible with real-time imaging.
title Assessment of the Axial Resolution of a Compact Gamma Camera with Coded Aperture Collimator
topic Medical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.10633