Evaluation of a dual-panel PET camera design to breast cancer imaging

We are developing a novel, portable dual-panel positron emission tomography (PET) camera dedicated to breast cancer imaging. With a sensitive area of ∼ 150 cm2, this camera is based on arrays of lutetium oxyorthosilicate (LSO) crystals (1×1×3 mm3) coupled to 11×11-mm2 position-sensitive avalanche photodiodes (PSAPD). GATE open source software was used to perform Monte Carlo simulations to optimize the parameters for the camera design. The noise equivalent counting (NEC) rate, together with the true, scatter, and random counting rates were simulated at different time and energy windows. Focal plane tomography (FPT) was used for visualizing the tumors at different depths between the two detector panels. Attenuation and uniformity corrections were applied to images.