High-Performance Compton SPECT Using Both Photoelectric and Compton Scattering Events

In conventional single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), only the photoelectric events in the detectors are used for image reconstruction. However, if the I-131 isotope, which emits high-energy radiations (364, 637, and 723 keV), is used in nuclear medicine, both photoelectric and Compton scattering events can be used for image reconstruction. The purpose of our work is to perform simulations for Compton SPECT by using the Geant4 application for tomographic emission (GATE). The performance of Compton SPECT is evaluated and compared with that of conventional SPECT. The Compton SPECT unit has an area of 12 cm x 12 cm with four gantry heads. Each head is composed of a 2-cm tungsten collimator and a 40x40 array of CdZnTe (CZT) crystals with a 3x3 mm(2) area and a 6-mm thickness. Compton SPECT can use not only the photoelectric effect but also the Compton scattering effect for image reconstruction. The correct sequential order of the interactions used for image reconstruction is determined using the angular resolution measurement (ARM) method and the energies deposited in each detector. In all the results of simulations using spherical volume sources of various diameters, the reconstructed images of Compton SPECT show higher signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) without degradation of the image resolution when compared to those of conventional SPECT because the effective count for image reconstruction is higher. For a Derenzo-like phantom, the reconstructed images for different modalities are compared by visual inspection and by using their projected histograms in the X-direction of the reconstructed images.