Proposal and demonstration of a novel SPECT for high-precision gamma-ray imaging

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Abstract
In nuclear medicine, there is a growing demand for imaging the pharmacokinetics of various therapeutic drugs. Although there are promising radiopharmaceuticals that emit gamma rays of several hundred keV, imaging devices offering high contrast and spatial resolution in this energy range have not yet been developed. Compton cameras perform imaging in high-energy regions, including several hundred keV and even higher than MeV; however, their spatial resolution is relatively low. Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) offers high spatial resolution for imaging with X-rays and gamma rays below 200 keV. However, thick collimator walls are required for imaging in high-energy regions, leading to limited statistics and low image contrast. Therefore, we developed a high-contrast SPECT (HC-SPECT) system capable of high-contrast and high-resolution imaging using gamma rays in a several hundred keV range. We developed a collimator with an array of hourglass-shaped holes that efficiently collect gamma rays while maintaining the thickness of the collimator walls to prevent noise events. In this study, a prototype HC-SPECT system was developed, and its performance was compared with that of a Compton camera and parallel-hole SPECT.

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