Positron emission tomography camera

This patent describes a positron emission tomography camera having detector planes positioned side-by-side around a patient area to detect radiation therefrom. Each plane containing scintillation detectors pointed to the patient area, each plane of detectors defining a plane slice through the patient area by the detectors in each plane, and each two adjacent detector planes defining an interplane slice through the patient area. An improvement in the detectors is described comprising, each detector plane including a plurality of photomultiplier tubes, at least three scintillation crystals positioned on each photomultiplier tube in each plane for detecting radiation from the patient area which the tubes convert into electrical pulses, the crystals positioned on each photomultiplier tube such that whereby each photomultiplier tube is responsive to all of the crystals on the tube, the crystals on each photomultiplier tube being offset from the other crystals on each photomultiplier tube. The area of each crystal on each photomultiplier tube is different than the area of the other crystals on each photomultiplier tube so as to allow detection of which crystal is actuated and to allow the detectors to detect more interplane slices