The long-term objective is to improve medical imaging quality, thereby improving detection, diagnosis, and therapy for a number of human health diseases.
The specific aim of this research is to fabricate advanced high-resolution collimators and detectors for nuclear medicine imaging. An innovative manufacturing technology will be used to produce advanced high-resolution collimators and detectors made from improved materials, not previously used in medical imaging. The combination of a new manufacturing method and materials offers important advantages in terms of design flexibility and performance over current collimator and detector fabrication techniques. This is an enabling manufacturing related technology with the potential to allow high-quality collimator and detector systems to be produced at a relatively low cost. Phase I demonstrated technical feasibility by fabricating prototype low energy high-resolution (LEHR) collimators employing a dense (approximately 11 g/cc) composite material, and comparing their dimensional accuracy and imaging performance against state-of-the-art commercially available LEHR collimators. Phase II will extend the manufacturing approach to other elements in an 'integrated' detector system including collimator, scintillator detector array, and optical interface elements. The Phase II objective is to fabricate and thoroughly test an integrated small-format gamma camera for breast imaging. Commercial applications include nuclear medicine, computed tomography, mammography, general radiography, and non-medical areas such as astrophysics, non-destructuve testing, and homeland security.
