DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A HIGH-RESOLUTION SMALL ANIMAL POSITRON TOMOGRAPH

We have used Monte Carlo simulation methods to design and evaluate a s mall animal Positron Tomograph, The tomograph has an inner diameter of 34.37 cm and a field of view of 20 cm (diameter) transaxially and 6 c m axially, The basic gamma-ray detector unit consists of a partially s egmented EGO block made of 18 x 16 crystals of dimensions 3.35 mm x 3. 30 mm x 30 mm, read out by a position sensitive photomultiplier tube w ith crossed anode wires, The design of the block was accomplished with our recently developed Monte Carlo simulation program for PET design, which also was used for the evaluation of the performance of the Tomo graph, The rate (trues, randoms, NEC) performance as well as the resol ution have been studied and compared to those of other tomographs.