Design and evaluation of HEADTOME-IV, a whole-body positron emission tomograph

A whole-body positron emission tomograph called Headtome-IV has been developed, and its physical performance has been investigated. An in-plane spatial resolution of 4.5 mm was realized with stationary sampling at the center of the field of view. The axial slice thicknesses were 9.5 and 9.0 mm for direct and cross planes, respectively. By moving the gantry framework axially, transaxial images of 14 or 21 slices are obtained quasi-simultaneously. The real-time large-scale cache memory system allowed real-time corrections for deadtime and radionuclide decay and real-time weighted integration for the purpose of a rapid calculation of rate-constant images.>