1 PET Project: current and future developments A. Trindade – PET/LIP Group Jornadas LIP, January 2008 Outline:  Development of PET technologies applied to mammography (PET I)  Development of new technologies (PET II)

2  Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women: 4500 new cases each year in Portugal  Whole body PET using 18 F-FDG radiotracer has an increasing application for breast cancer detection Breast Cancer and PET infiltrating carcinoma L. P Adler, Fox Chase Cancer Center PET: physiological functions of the tissue There is a need to improve the sensitivity and specificity of PET for small lesions X-ray: lesion size, shape and tissue density

3  Dedicated PET scanners for breast imaging  ClearPEM requirements:  High detection sensitivity  Spatial resolution (1-2 mm FWHM)  Time resolution for backgr. rejection (1-2 ns)  Shorter exams and/or less dose (370 MBq)  Detector concept:  Two planar heads (FOV ~ 15 cm x 17 cm)  Mammary gland and axilla region exams  Exam with the patient in prone position  Ajustable distance between heads and rotation angle Breast exam Axilla exam Positron Emission Mammography (PEM)

IBEB (Inst. Biofísica e Engª Biomédica - FCUL) HGO (Hospital Garcia de Orta) IBILI (Inst. Biomédico Invest. Luz e Imagem - FMUC) INOV / INESC-ID (Inst. Engª Sistemas Computadores) INEGI (Inst. Engª Mecânica e Gestão Industrial) The PET-Mammography Consortium 8 Institutes 40 People Crystal Clear Collab. LIP (Lab. Instrumentação e Física Exp. de Partículas) TagusPark S.A. Financiamento: AdI (Agência de Inovação) The PET-Mammography consortium was created in December 2002

5  Scientific coordination  R&D activities on radiation detectors  Electronic systems arquitecture and development  Data acquisition software development  Detector design and performance studies  Detector integration  Commissioning and pre-clinical tests PET/LIP Group R. Bugalho, B. Carriço, M. Ferreira, R. Moura, C. Ortigão, J. Pinheiro, J. C. Silva, P. Rodrigues, A. Trindade, J. Varela

6 Detector Module Performance  Optimization studies:  Crystal surface roughness  Reflector type  Optical coupling medium  Characterization studies:  Energy resolution: 511 keV  Ligth collection  DOI resolution: 2.2 mm FWHM  Cross-talk contamination: 4-5%  Ageing effects  Discrete 32 channels electronic setups Single readout (flood irradiation) Double readout (flood and colimated irradiations) LIP

7 APD Quality Control  400 Hamamatsu APD quality control  Gain vs bias voltage  Dark current  Gain gradient  One person full time for 4 months (2006)  Development of an automated setup (2007):  Slots for 16 APDs  Settings - Altera DE2 board/Labview  10 days for 400 APDs LIP

8 ClearPEM at Hospital Garcia de Orta (Installation in 2008, clinical trials with 300 patients) Control Rack Robot INEGI Detector Heads Data Acquisition Electronics (L1 hardware trigger) Cooling System (working Temp.=18ºC) INEGI Service Rack 1. FE Emulator Electronics (LIP, INOV) 2. DAE Server (L2 software trigger) (LIP) 3. Service Manager (slow control sw) (LIP) 4. High Voltage Supplys 5. Low Voltage Supplys Scanner Operator Workstation Reconstruction and visualization software Acquisition tool (LIP, IBEB, IBILI) Detector and data info.

First ClearPEM Image (Na-22 source) Acquired Data Simulated Data LIP, IBEB

10 Lesion Detectability (5 min. exam) LIP, IBEB 3D-OSEM images of a breast phantom from simulated data Images not corrected for attenuation, scatters or randoms Results support that ClearPEM scanner can improve the detection of breast lesions  5 mm lesions: 100% detectability for all L/B FDG ratios  3 mm lesions: 100% detectability for the highest L/B FDG ratios

11 PET I Activities Detector Integration  First full integration exercice of the ClearPEM system: May 2007 at TagusLIP  All the sub-systems were tested (next talk):  Detector heads integration  Front-End electronics  Data acquisition electronics  Data acquisition and slow control software  Some revisions are currently in progress before the final integration Commissioning and Pre-clinical tests  Detector calibration methods  Image correction techniques: normalization  Tests with radioactive phantoms  Definition of the scanner operation protocols

12 TagusLIP: LIP Laboratory at TagusPark  Reorganization of the laboratory in 2007 Inside the bunkerBunker for work with radioactive sources Laboratory Area First floor Computing  Internal network upgraded to Gigabit  Dedicated servers for data analysis and electronics developments  Mass storage in NFS server  Automatic synchronization with PET storage dCache area (FTP Grid)

13 PET II Activities  New PET detector modules  Revised APD array / evaluation of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMTs)  Revised electronics: frontend and off-detector data acquisition (next talk)  Small animal imaging platform  ClearPEM-Sonic (PET-US)  PET insert for Magnet Resonance Imaging (PET-MRI)

14  Baseline design like ClearPEM but several upgrades foreseen  To be installed at TagusLIP:  A technological demonstrator for future PET R&D developments  Link with institutes interested in PET for biomedical applications Small Animal Imaging Platform Moby (mouse) phantomPlanar geometry

15 Small Animal Images Soft tissue in gray Bone squeleton in white Phantom Geometry Reconstructed Activity Anatomy/Activity Fusion 3D-OSEM images of a mouse bone scan (18F) from simulated data Bone uptake LIP, IBEB