Initial PET performance evaluation of a preclinical insert for PET/MRI with digital SiPM technology.

Hyperion-II(D) is a positron emission tomography (PET) insert which allows simultaneous operation in a clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. To read out the scintillation light of the employed lutetium yttrium orthosilicate crystal arrays with a pitch of 1 mm and 12 mm in height, digital silicon photomultipliers (DPC 3200-22, Philips Digital Photon Counting) (DPC) are used. The basic PET performance in terms of energy resolution, coincidence resolution time (CRT) and sensitivity as a function of the operating parameters, such as the operating temperature, the applied overvoltage, activity and configuration parameters of the DPCs, has been evaluated at system level. The measured energy resolution did not show a large dependency on the selected parameters and is in the range of 12.4%-12.9% for low activity, degrading to ∼13.6% at an activity of ∼100 MBq. The CRT strongly depends on the selected trigger scheme (trig) of the DPCs, and we measured approximately 260 ps, 440 ps, 550 ps and 1300 ps for trig 1-4, respectively. The trues sensitivity for a NEMA NU 4 mouse-sized scatter phantom with a 70 mm long tube of activity was dependent on the operating parameters and was determined to be 0.4%-1.4% at low activity. The random fraction stayed below 5% at activity up to 100 MBq and the scatter fraction was evaluated as ∼6% for an energy window of 411 keV-561 keV and ∼16% for 250 keV-625 keV. Furthermore, we performed imaging experiments using a mouse-sized hot-rod phantom and a large rabbit-sized phantom. In 2D slices of the reconstructed mouse-sized hot-rod phantom (∅ = 28 mm), the rods were distinguishable from each other down to a rod size of 0.8 mm. There was no benefit from the better CRT of trig 1 over trig 3, where in the larger rabbit-sized phantom (∅ = 114 mm) we were able to show a clear improvement in image quality using the time-of-flight information. The findings will allow system architects-aiming at a similar detector design using DPCs-to make predictions about the design requirements and the performance that can be expected.

PET performance and MRI compatibility evaluation of a digital, ToF-capable PET/MRI insert equipped with clinical scintillators.

We evaluate the MR compatibility of the Hyperion-II(D) positron emission tomography (PET) insert, which allows simultaneous operation in a clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. In contrast to previous investigations, this work aims at the evaluation of a clinical crystal configuration. An imaging-capable demonstrator with an axial field-of-view of 32 mm and a crystal-to-crystal spacing of 217.6 mm was equipped with LYSO scintillators with a pitch of 4 mm which were read out in a one-to-one coupling scheme by sensor tiles composed of digital silicon photomultipliers from Philips Digital Photon Counting (DPC 3200-22). The PET performance degradation (energy resolution and coincidence resolution time (CRT)) was evaluated during simultaneous operation of the MRI scanner. We used clinically motivated imaging sequences as well as synthetic gradient stress test sequences. Without activity of the MRI scanner, we measured for trigger scheme 1 (first photon trigger) an energy resolution of 11.4% and a CRT of 213 ps for a narrow energy (NE) window using five (22)Na point-like sources. When applying the synthetic gradient sequences, we found worst-case relative degradations of the energy resolution by 5.1% and of the CRT by 33.9%. After identifying the origin of the degradations and implementing a fix to the read-out hardware, the same evaluation revealed no degradation of the PET performance anymore even when the most demanding gradient stress tests were applied. The PET performance of the insert was initially evaluated using the point sources, a high-activity phantom and hot-rod phantoms in order to assess the spatial resolution. Trigger schemes 2-4 delivered an energy resolution of 11.4% as well and CRTs of 279 ps, 333 ps and 557 ps for the NE window, respectively. An isocenter sensitivity of 0.41% using the NE window and 0.71% with a wide energy window was measured. Using a hot-rod phantom, a spatial resolution in the order of 2 mm was demonstrated and the benefit of time-of-flight PET was shown with a larger rabbit-sized phantom. In conclusion, the Hyperion architecture is an interesting platform for clinically driven hybrid PET/MRI systems.