PET physics and instrumentation

Abstract

The design of instrumentation for positron emission tomography (PET) scanners has vastly progressed over the past 30 years. In this chapter, we focus on the motivations and technical advancements that lead to the development of multimodality imaging systems, including the integration of PET and CT into combined PET/CT scanners for whole-body imaging. We also provide a review of recent advances in time-of-flight (TOF) PET, ending with a description of current state-of-the-art TOF-PET/CT imaging systems. We begin with an overview of PET detector design and explore the trade-offs associated with the choice of scintillator, photodetector, and their arrangement. Next, PET data correction approaches, including attenuation correction, for PET/CT are discussed along with a technical description of PET/CT system hardware. Specific concepts and instrumentation aspects of TOF-PET are then reviewed, ending with a brief discussion on the outlook and future directions for PET instrumentation research. This chapter highlights recent advances in PET instrumentation and describes their impact and contribution to the improvement in clinical PET imaging.