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Construction of a phantom for PET and SPECT quality control

¹ Medical Physics, Odette Cancer Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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Objectives: To assess a novel method of producing complex distributions for quality control of emission tomographic devices. The reusable phantom for PET and SPECT should be self-assembling, and easily reusable.

Methods: A rapid prototyper was used to construct a contrast-detail test phantom. The design consisted of a cylinder 11 cm tall and 15 cm in diameter. Throughout the cylinder an array of 1.2 mm diameter hollow cylinders spaced 3 mm apart in a hexagonal pattern was created. To represent differing levels of contrast, the diameter of the hollow cylinders was varied, ranging from 1.4 to 3.0 mm. To produce a particular physical shape, the cylinders conforming to the perimeter of the desired shape were enlarged. The shape chosen for this study was a sphere, and the diameters chosen for the spheres ranged from 3 mm to 9 mm. In total, 64 different spheres were modeled. The phantom was then filled with a solution of 99mTc for SPECT imaging with an initial activity of 0.309 GBq.

Results: The SPECT image demonstrated the success of the rapid-prototyper design. In the SPECT image 15 of the 64 objects could be clearly detected. Both aspects of our design were demonstrated. A single activity concentration, combined with the variable diameter cylinders, did indeed result in multiple activity contrasts. Furthermore, the resolution of the columns was sufficiently beyond the resolution of the imaging system. Therefore, the desired shape, and not the individual columns, was seen in the image.

Conclusions: The rapid-prototyper method of construction offers a huge array of possibilities. The SPECT image demonstrates that a single activity does indeed result in multiple contrasts. Also, the rapid-prototyper design is relatively simple to construct making any detail shape, not just spheres, possible. Moreover, the phantom is reusable.

This Article Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Hunt, D. Articles by Caldwell, C. PubMed Articles by Hunt, D. Articles by Caldwell, C.