A CYLINDRICAL GEOMETRY FOR CARDIAC SPECT IMAGING

In SPECT imaging, a cylindrical detector geometry offers many advantag es. Because the detector completely surrounds the patient, the cylindr ical system geometry should provide more detector coverage than the ro tating camera SPECT systems. This increased coverage means increased s ensitivity, or improved resolution, and better image quality. Because the cylindrical detector system is stationary and the projection data is acquired through collimator rotation, this geometry simplifies syst em design and allows very stable imaging performance. We propose a cyl indrical system geometry that features a large number of projections f or a small FOV located at the center of the gantry. This geometry has potential for cardiac SPECT imaging, provided that the patient's body can be offset properly and reliably to place his heart in the specifie d FOV. General design issues and potential configurations for such a c ardiac SPECT system are presented.