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Detection of metastatic lymph nodes with multiparametric PET/MR in head and neck imaging

Kemper, Erik (author)

Detection of lymph node involvement has a significant negative impact on the treatment outcome for patients with head and neck squamous-cell carcinomas (SCC). Metastatic lymph nodes can be detected with high sensitivity by 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET). However, 18F-FDG uptake is not only increased in...

master thesis 2023

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On the Versatility of Nanozeolite Linde Type L for Biomedical Applications: Zirconium-89 Radiolabeling and in Vivo Positron Emission Tomography Study

Lacerda, Sara (author), Zhang, W. (author), T. M. De Rosales, Rafael (author), Da Silva, Isidro (author), Sobilo, Julien (author), Lerondel, Stéphanie (author), Tóth, Éva (author), Djanashvili, K. (author)

Porous materials, such as zeolites, have great potential for biomedical applications, thanks to their ability to accommodate positively charged metal-ions and their facile surface functionalization. Although the latter aspect is important to endow the nanoparticles with chemical/colloidal stability and desired biological properties, the...

journal article 2022

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Physics and technology of time-of-flight PET detectors

Schaart, D.R. (author)

The imaging performance of clinical positron emission tomography (PET) systems has evolved impressively during the last ∼15 years. A main driver of these improvements has been the introduction of time-of-flight (TOF) detectors with high spatial resolution and detection efficiency, initially based on photomultiplier tubes, later silicon...

review 2021

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Time of Flight in Perspective: Instrumental and Computational Aspects of Time Resolution in Positron Emission Tomography

Schaart, D.R. (author), Schramm, Georg (author), Nuyts, Johan (author), Surti, Suleman (author)

The first time-of-flight positron emission tomography (TOF-PET) scanners were developed as early as in the 1980s. However, the poor light output and low detection efficiency of TOF-capable detectors available at the time limited any gain in image quality achieved with these TOF-PET scanners over the traditional non-TOF PET scanners. The...

review 2021

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Accelerated image reconstruction by a combined dual-matrix dual-voxel approach

Goorden, M.C. (author), Kamphuis, Chris (author), Ramakers, R.M. (author), Beekman, F.J. (author)

Today, versatile emission computed tomography (VECTor) technology using dedicated high-energy collimation enables simultaneous positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) down to 0.6 mm and 0.4 mm resolution in mice, respectively. We recently showed that for optimal resolution and quantitative...

journal article 2020

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A High Count-Rate and Depth-of-Interaction Resolving Single-Layered One-Side Readout Pixelated Scintillator Crystal Array for PET Applications

Brown, J.M.C. (author), Brunner, S. (author), Schaart, D.R. (author)

Organ-specific, targeted field-of-view (FoV) positron emission tomography (PET)/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) inserts are viable solutions for a number of imaging tasks where whole-body PET/MRI systems lack the necessary sensitivity and resolution. To meet the required PET detector performance of these systems, high count-rates and...

journal article 2020

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Sub-3 mm, near-200 ps TOF/DOI-PET imaging with monolithic scintillator detectors in a 70 cm diameter tomographic setup

Borghi, G. (author), Tabacchini, V. (author), Bakker, P.J. (author), Schaart, D.R. (author)

Recently, a monolithic scintillator detector for time-of-flight (TOF)/depth-of-interaction (DOI) positron emission tomography (PET) was developed. It has a detector spatial resolution of ∼1.7 mm full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM), a coincidence resolving time (CRT) of ∼215 ps FWHM, and ∼4.7 mm FWHM DOI resolution. Here, we demonstrate, for the...

journal article 2018

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Towards a Full-Flexible and Fast-Prototyping TOF-PET Block Detector Based on TDC-on-FPGA

Venialgo Araujo, E. (author), Lusardi, Nicola (author), Garzetti, Fabio (author), Geraci, Angelo (author), Brunner, S. (author), Schaart, D.R. (author), Charbon-Iwasaki-Charbon, E. (author)

Typically, a time-of-flight (TOF) PET block detector is built using application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), since they integrate a high number of channels at a reasonable power consumption and into a small area. However, ASICs’ flexibility is limited and prototyping times are long because a semiconductor fabrication process is required...

journal article 2018

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Improvement of tumour heterogeneity quantification in PET images: A study to design and develop a new PET heterogeneous phantom

Ghesquière-Diérickx, Laura (author)

In medical images intratumour heterogeneity well translates specific cancer cells properties in a fast and non-invasive way. Medical community and researchers have developed proper tools (texture features, shape features…) permitting the quantification and the analysis of this tumour heterogeneity in particular in PET images. Yet so far, both...

master thesis 2017

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BGO as a hybrid scintillator / Cherenkov radiator for cost-effective time-of-flight PET

Brunner, S. (author), Schaart, D.R. (author)

Due to detector developments in the last decade, the time-of-flight (TOF) method is now commonly used to improve the quality of positron emission tomography (PET) images. Clinical TOF-PET systems based on L(Y)SO:Ce crystals and silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) with coincidence resolving times (CRT) between 325 ps and 400 ps FWHM have recently...

journal article 2017

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Improved image quality using monolithic scintillator detectors with dual-sided readout in a whole-body TOF-PET ring: A simulation study

Tabacchini, V. (author), Surti, Suleman (author), Borghi, G. (author), Karp, Joel S. (author), Schaart, D.R. (author)

We have recently built and characterized the performance of a monolithic scintillator detector based on a 32 mm × 32 mm × 22 mm LYSO:Ce crystal read out by digital silicon photomultiplier (dSiPM) arrays coupled to the crystal front and back surfaces in a dual-sided readout (DSR) configuration. The detector spatial resolution appeared to be...

journal article 2017

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Towards monolithic scintillator based TOF-PET systems: Practical methods for detector calibration and operation

Borghi, G. (author), Tabacchini, V. (author), Schaart, D.R. (author)

Gamma-ray detectors based on thick monolithic scintillator crystals can achieve spatial resolutions <2 mm full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) and coincidence resolving times (CRTs) better than 200 ps FWHM. Moreover, they provide high sensitivity and depth-of-interaction (DOI) information. While these are excellent characteristics for...

journal article 2016

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A 32 mm × 32 mm × 22 mm monolithic LYSO: Ce detector with dual-sided digital photon counter readout for ultrahigh-performance TOF-PET and TOF-PET/MRI

Borghi, G. (author), Peet, B.J.A. (author), Tabacchini, V. (author), Schaart, D.R. (author)

New applications for positron emission tomography (PET) and combined PET/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are currently emerging, for example in the fields of neurological, breast, and pediatric imaging. Such applications require improved image quality, reduced dose, shorter scanning times, and more precise quantification. This can be...

journal article 2016

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Optimizing modelling in iterative image reconstruction for preclinical pinhole PET

Goorden, M.C. (author), van Roosmalen, J. (author), van der Have, F. (author), Beekman, F.J. (author)

The recently developed versatile emission computed tomography (VECTor) technology enables high-energy SPECT and simultaneous SPECT and PET of small animals at sub-mm resolutions. VECTor uses dedicated clustered pinhole collimators mounted in a scanner with three stationary large-area NaI(Tl) gamma detectors. Here, we develop and validate...

journal article 2016

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First in situ TOF-PET study using digital photon counters for proton range verification

Cambraia Lopes, P (author), Bauer, J. (author), Salomon, A. (author), Rinaldi, I (author), Tabacchini, V. (author), Tessonnier, T. (author), Crespo, P (author), Parodi, K (author), Schaart, D.R. (author)

Positron emission tomography (PET) is the imaging modality most extensively tested for treatment monitoring in particle therapy. Optimal use of PET in proton therapy requires in situ acquisition of the relatively strong ¹⁵O signal due to its relatively short half-life (∼2 min) and high oxygen content in biological tissues, enabling...

journal article 2016

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Time-based position estimation in monolithic scintillator detectors

Tabacchini, V. (author), Borghi, G. (author), Schaart, D.R. (author)

Gamma-ray detectors based on bright monolithic scintillation crystals coupled to pixelated photodetectors are currently being considered for several applications in the medical imaging field. In a typical monolithic detector, both the light intensity and the time of arrival of the earliest scintillation photons can be recorded by each of the...

journal article 2015

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Monolithic scintillators and SiPMs in time-of-flight PET detectors

Van Dam, H.T. (author)

Positron emission tomography (PET) is one of the key medical imaging modalities in the diagnosis and staging of e.g. cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The image formation is based on the measurement of annihilation photon pairs in the detector ring of the PET scanner. The diagnostic value of a PET image depends crucially on the image quality,...

doctoral thesis 2012

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Modelling monolithic scintillator detectors for positron emission tomography

Van der Laan, D.J. (author)

Monolithic scintillator detectors are very promising for high-resolution high-sensitivity PET. These detectors consist of several cubic centimetres of scintillating material coupled on one or more sides to position-sensitive avalanche photo-diode (APD) arrays. The coordinates of the entry point of an incoming gamma photon are estimated from the...

doctoral thesis 2009

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3-D Rat Brain Phantom for High-Resolution Molecular Imaging: Experimental studies aimed at advancing understanding of human brain disease and malfunction, and of behavior problems, may be aided by computer models of small laboratory animals

Beekman, F.J. (author), Vastenhouw, B. (author), Van der Wilt, G. (author), Vervloet, M. (author), Visscher, R. (author), Booij, J. (author), Gerrits, M. (author), Ji, C. (author), Ramakers, R. (author), Van der Have, F. (author)

With the steadily improving resolution of novel small-animal single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography devices, highly detailed phantoms are required for testing and optimizing these systems. We present a three-dimensional (3-D) digital and physical phantom pair to represent, e.g., cerebral blood flow,...

journal article 2009

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Monolithic scintillator detectors for high-resolution positron emission tomography

Maas, M.C. (author)

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a technique for imaging the 3-dimensional distribution of radio-labelled molecules in vivo. This technique plays an increasingly important role in preclinical research involving mice and rats. The small dimensions of these animals impose stringent requirements on both the image resolution and the sensitivity...

doctoral thesis 2008