NIRS report of investigations for the development of the next generation PET apparatus. FY 2002

The present status of studies conducted by representative technology fields for the development of the next generation PET apparatus, and the summary of opinions given by investigators of nuclear medicine are reported. The former involves chapters of: Summary of representative technologies for the development of the next generation PET apparatus; Count rate analysis of PET apparatuses for the whole body and small animals by PET simulator; Scintillator; DOI (depth of interaction) detector-evaluation of the detector with 256-ch fluorescence polarization-photomultiplier tubes (FP-PMT) trial apparatus etc; Examination of multi-slice DOI-MR compatible detector for PET; Development of application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for processing the front-end signals; Detector simulation; Circuit for processing PET detector signals; Signal processing-coincidence circuit; Data collection system; Signal processing technology for the next generation PET; Reconstruction of statistical PET image using DOI signals; Monte Carlo simulation and Unique directions-PET for infants and for the whole body autonomic nervous systems and mental activity; and Actual design and evaluation of image reconstruction by statistical means. Opinions are: Progress of clinical PET apparatus; Desirable PET drugs and apparatuses; From clinical practice for the development of the next generation PET apparatus; From clinical psychiatric studies for the development; From application of drug development and basic researches; From brain PET practice; From clinical PET practice; and The role of National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) in PET development. Also involved is the publication list. (N.I.)