Noise equivalent count measurements in a neuro-PET scanner with retractable septa

This paper reports on the removal of interplane septa in a PET scanner that enables acquisition of all possible lines of response (3D mode) in an effort to maximize the available number of detected events. One problem with this method at high countrates, however, is a markedly increased deadtime and randoms rate, which has a deleterious effect on data quality. The noise-equivalent countrate (NEC) performance of a neuro-PET scanner has been determined with and without interplane septa on uniform cylindrical phantoms of differing radii and in human studies to assess the optimum countrate conditions that realize the maximum gain. In the brain, the effective gain in NEC performance for 3D ranges from >5 at low countrates to ∼3.3 at 200 kcps (equivalent to 37 kcps in 2D). The gains of the 3D method assessed by this analysis are significant, and are shown to be highly dependent on countrate and object dimensions