PET/SPECT

Description

Small animal PET scanner:

A small animal PET scanner (A-PET) is operating in the small animal imaging laboratory, built in collaboration with Philips Medical Systems. This system has very high spatial resolution (approx 2 mm), operates exclusively as a fully 3D instrument with very high sensitivity and large field-of-view of 12 cm in both axial and transverse directions.

SPECT scanner:

A Prism 3000XP triple-headed SPECT scanner (Philips Medical Systems, Cleveland, OH) is available for SPECT imaging. This is used for small animal imaging with three custom-made pinhole collimators (constructed by Nuclear Fields, Des Plaines, IL). Each collimator has four screw-in pinhole adapters of varying sizes (0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 mm). System tests of these collimators have shown them to be capable of excellent spatial resolution (0.8 mm). We have also obtained a set of three multi-pinhole collimators from the same company, which can provide improved counting statistics over the single-pinhole devices.

Small animal microCT:

The small animal microCT scanner from ImTek has a spatial resolution of < 50 mm, and provides anatomical images to complement the PET and SPECT data. A CT scan of each animal can be performed routinely, immediately before or after obtaining the functional PET/SPECT data, to provide accurate image registration for anatomical localization and region-of-interest delineation.

Anesthesia system:

We operate an isoflurane anesthesia system (VetEquip Inc., Pleasanton, CA) specifically designed for use with small laboratory animals (rats and mice). The system comprises several induction boxes for the safe initial anesthesia of mice, and custom-made nose-cones for maintaining anesthesia throughout the SPECT session. We can also monitor animals using a computerized veterninary monitoring system (Vetronics, West Lafayette, IN).

Computers / software:

Our laboratory computer workstations are behind a local firewall to ensure complete data security. Image data are transferred to a Mac web server and database, with nearly 1 TB of RAID disk, from which users have full access to their data. Data are backed up on CD-R disks immediately after collection, and stored off-site. We have commercial analysis software such as Matlab (The Mathworks Inc, Natick, MA), Amira (Indeed Visual Concepts, Germany), Amide (UCLA), and the Statistical Parametric Mapping system (SPM2, University College London).

Cyclotron and radiochemistry facilty:

The PET Center cyclotron facility manufactures 18F, 11C, 13N and 15O isotopes. The Cyclotron Facility is housed in 5100 sq. ft. of underground space adjacent to the Nursing Education Building in HUP. The space is divided into the cyclotron vault which contains the Japan Steel Works BC 3015 cyclotron (30 MeV) and related equipment, a control room to operate the machine, a research radiochemistry lab, and a clinical GMP lab. The cyclotron can produce about 1 Ci of 18F with a 90 minute bombardment of 22 MeV protons on a 18O-water target, and about the same activity of 11C with a 45 minute bombardment of 22 MeV protons on a nitrogen gas target. 15O is made by continuous bombardment of 11 MeV deuterons on a nitrogen gas target (with 5% hydrogen). The lab includes five hot cells and three cold chemistry hoods, as well as a laminar flow hood. Several high pressure liquid chromotography (HPLC) unit and gas chromatograph are available for quality control of radiopharmaceuticals. The services of a machine shop are available within the cyclotron.

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PET/SPECT/CT Imaging Rates

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