TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of collimator selection on tumor detection for dedicated nuclear breast imaging systems
AU - Hruska, Carrie B.
AU - O'Connor, Michael K.
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received December 15, 2005; revised May 25, 2006. This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health under Grant R21 CA110162. C. B. Hruska is with the Mayo Graduate School, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN 55905 USA (e-mail: hruska.carrie@mayo.edu). M. K. O’Connor is with the Section of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905 USA (e-mail: mkoconnor@mayo. edu). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TNS.2006.879824
PY - 2006/10
Y1 - 2006/10
N2 - The effect of collimation on the detection of small (<1 cm) breast tumors with dedicated nuclear breast imaging systems was determined. A breast phantom modeling tumors 4-9 mm in diameter was imaged with three dedicated systems (GE Medical Prototype CZT, Gamma Medica LumaGEM 3200 s, and Digirad 2020 tc), and a conventional gamma camera (Elscint Helix) using a variety of system-specific and generic collimators ranging from LEUHS to LEUHR. Acquisitions were performed using clinically relevant count densities determined from analysis of patient exams. Tumors were placed at depths of 1,3, and 5 cm from the collimator in a 6-cm-thick breast, and tumor-to-background ratio was varied from 3 : 1 to 35 : 1. Tumor signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was measured in each image. SNR measurements showed that an all-purpose or high sensitivity collimator is optimal for the detection of small tumors close to the collimator face. The three pixilated systems gave similar results and performed significantly better than the conventional gamma camera.
AB - The effect of collimation on the detection of small (<1 cm) breast tumors with dedicated nuclear breast imaging systems was determined. A breast phantom modeling tumors 4-9 mm in diameter was imaged with three dedicated systems (GE Medical Prototype CZT, Gamma Medica LumaGEM 3200 s, and Digirad 2020 tc), and a conventional gamma camera (Elscint Helix) using a variety of system-specific and generic collimators ranging from LEUHS to LEUHR. Acquisitions were performed using clinically relevant count densities determined from analysis of patient exams. Tumors were placed at depths of 1,3, and 5 cm from the collimator in a 6-cm-thick breast, and tumor-to-background ratio was varied from 3 : 1 to 35 : 1. Tumor signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was measured in each image. SNR measurements showed that an all-purpose or high sensitivity collimator is optimal for the detection of small tumors close to the collimator face. The three pixilated systems gave similar results and performed significantly better than the conventional gamma camera.
KW - Collimator
KW - Dedicated breast imaging
KW - Scintimammography
KW - Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
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U2 - 10.1109/TNS.2006.879824
DO - 10.1109/TNS.2006.879824
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33750389415
SN - 0018-9499
VL - 53
SP - 2680
EP - 2689
JO - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
JF - IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
IS - 5
M1 - 1710256
ER -