CdZnTe arrays for nuclear medicine imaging

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Abstract
In nuclear medicine, a gamma-ray-emitting radiotracer is injected into the body, and the resulting biodistribution is imaged using a gamma camera. Current gamma cameras use a design developed by Anger '. An Anger camera makes use of a slab of scintillation detector that is viewed by an array of photomultiplier tubes and uses an analog position estimation technique to determine the position ofthe gamma ray's interaction. The image-forming optics is usually a multi-bore collimator made of lead. Such cameras are characterized by poor, system spatial resolution (-1 cm) due to poor detector resolution (-0.4 cm) and poor collimator performance. The energy resolution ofcurrent gamma cameras is also limited (-11% FWHM @ 140 keV). Energy resolution is useful for suppressing the effects ofCompton scattering in tissue. In single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), a number of images are taken ofthe patient from different viewing directions and these images are used to reconstruct a representation ofthe three-dimensional source distribution. Another technique, positron emission tomography (PET), images the annihilation radiation from a positron emitter, but it is more costly than SPECT and less widely available.

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