GAMMA CAMERA

AUTHOR 1 AUTHOR 2
P.SRAVANI R.SANDHYA
III/IV BTECH, CSE III/IV BTECH, CSE Phone no:9701414993

phone no:9959141414

Email id [email protected] [email protected]

NIMRA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

IBRAHIM PATNAM, Krishna District.

ABSTRACT
In the present day scenario complete diagnosis of patients body condition with in-depth internal details of body structure is very much required for a physician to provide proper medication .GAMMA CAMERA is a medical device used in nuclear medicine. It provides images of the distribution of gamma ray emitting radionuclides. It is used primarily in medical settings to produce high quality images. Gamma Camera is the part of Single Photon emission compute tomography (SPECT) System, which allows us to visualize Functional information about a patient specific organ or body system. As its name suggests (Gamma Camera), Gamma ray emissions are the source of information, rather than x-ray transmission as used in commercial computed tomography .Gamma camera has been undergoing investigation for several years as a possible complementary tool to x-ray mammography in Breast cancer, Bone cancer detection, to lesion or to eliminate the need for painful biopsy procedure.

INTRODUCTION
An electronic instrument used in medical diagnostics to image the distribution of radioactive compounds in animal tissue.A gamma camera is a medical imaging device used in nuclear medicine. It produces images of the distribution of gamma ray emitting radio nuclides. A gamma camera is a complex device consisting of one or more detectors mounted on a gantry. It is connected to an acquisition system for operating the camera and for storing the images . The system accumulates counts of gamma photons that are absorbed by a crystal in the camera, usually a large flat crystal of sodium iodide with thallium doping in a light-sealed housing. The crystal scintillates in response to incident gamma radiation: when the energy of a gamma photon is absorbed, it emits a faint flash of light. Photomultiplier tubes (PMT) behind the crystal detect the fluorescent flashes and a computer sums the fluorescent counts. The computer in turn constructs and displays a two dimensional image of the relative spatial count density on a monitor. This image then reflects the distribution and relative concentration of radioactive tracer elements present in the organs and tissues imaged.

Hal Anger developed the first gamma camera in the 1960s. His original design, frequently called the Anger camera, is still widely used today. The Anger camera uses sets of vacuum tube photomultipliers, generally each tube face about 3 inches in diameter and arranged in hexagon configurations, behind the absorbing crystal. An electronic circuit design connecting the photo detectors is wired to reflect the relative coincidence of light fluorescence as sensed among the members of the hexagon detector array. Spatial location of each single flash of fluorescence is reflected by different voltages within the interconnecting circuit array. In order to obtain spatial information from the gamma emissions from an imaging subject some method of correlating the detected photons with the source point is required. The conventional method essentially consists of a sheet of lead with holes in it. This limits the source of photons detected by the crystal under individual holes to a cone with the point at the midline centre of the hole and extending from the collimator surface out to space. From this arrangement it is the case that the subject can be imaged. This is also one of the sources of blurring in the image. (Note: Lead does not totally attenuate gamma photons incident so there can be some crosstalk between hole). The presence of the collimator attenuates most (>99%) of incident photons. Other methods of image localization (pinhole, rotating slat collimator with CZT (Gagnon & Matthews) and others) have been proposed and tested; however, none have entered widespread routine clinical use. The best current camera system designs can differentiate two separate point sources of gamma photons located a minimum of 1.8 cm apart, at 5 cm away from the camera face. Spatial resolution decreases rapidly at increasing distances; around from the camera face. This limits the spatial accuracy of the computer image: it is fuzzy image made up of many dots of detected but not precisely located scintion. SPECT cardiac images, as used in nuclear cardiac stress testing, is formed using Anger cameras, usually one, two or three of which are solely tuned in a circle, on a single axis of rotation target.

Fi g :

GAMMA CAMERA

SPECT
Similar to X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) allows us to visualize functional information about a patient's specific organ or body system. Internal radiation is administered by means of a pharmaceutical which is labeled with a radioactive isotope. This so called radiopharmaceutical, or tracer, is either injected, ingested, or inhaled. The radioactive isotope decays, resulting in the emission of gamma rays. These gamma rays give us a picture of what's happening inside the patient's body. By using the most essential tool in Nuclear Medicine, the gamma camera. The gamma camera can be used in planar imaging to acquire 2-dimensional images, or in SPECT imaging to acquire 3-dimensional images. SPECT is short for Single Photon Emission as used in conventional Computed Computed Tomography. As its name suggests (single photon emission), gamma ray emissions are the source of information, rather than X-ray transmissions Tomography. The Gamma camera collects gamma rays that are emitted from within the patient, enabling us to

reconstruct a picture of where the gamma rays originated. From this, we can determine how a particular organ or system is functioning.

THE IMAGING SYSTEM

Once a radiopharmaceutical has been administered, it is necessary to detect the gamma ray emissions in order to attain the functional information. The instrument used in Nuclear Medicine for the detection of gamma rays is known as the Gamma camera. The components making up the gamma camera are the collimator, detector crystal, photomultiplier tube array, position logic circuits, and the data analysis computer. The purpose of each is briefly described below.

1.

Camera Collimator:

The first object that an emitted gamma photon encounters after exiting the body is the collimator. The collimator is a pattern of holes through gamma ray absorbing material,usually lead or tungsten, that allows the projection of the gamma ray image onto the detector crystal. The collimator achieves this by only allowing those gamma rays traveling along certain directions to reach the detector; this ensures that the position on the detector accurately depicts the originating location of the gamma ray.

2.

Scintillation Detector
In order to detect the gamma photon we use scintillation detectors. A Thallium-

activated Sodium Iodide [NaI(Tl)] detector crystal is generally used in Gamma cameras. This is due to this crystal's optimal detection efficiency for the gamma ray energies of radionuclide emission common to Nuclear Medicine. A detector crystal may be circular or rectangular. It is typically 3/8" thick and has dimensions of 30-50 cm. A gamma ray photon interacts with the detector by means of the Photoelectric Effect or Compton Scattering with the iodide ions of the crystal. This interaction causes the release of electrons which in turn interact with the crystal lattice to produce light, in a process known as scintillation.

3. Photomultiplier Tubes

Only a very small amount of light is given off from the scintillation detector. Therefore, photomultiplier tubes are attached to the back of the crystal. At the face of a photomultiplier tube (PMT) is a photocathode which, when stimulated by light photons ejects electrons. The PMT is an instrument that detects and amplifies the electrons that are produced by the photocathode. For every 7 to 10 photons incident on the photocathode, only one electron is generated. This electron from the cathode is focused on a dynode which absorbs this electron and re-emits many more electrons (usually 6 to 10). These new electrons are focused on the next dynode and the process is repeated over and over in an array of dynodes.At the base of the photomultiplier tube is an anode which attracts the final large cluster of electrons and converts them into an electrical pulse.Each gamma camera has several photomultiplier tubes arranged in a geometrical array. The typical camera has 37 to 91 PMT's.

3.

Position Circuitry
The position logic circuits immediately follow the photomultiplier tube array and

they receive the electrical impulses from the tubes in the summing matrix circuit (SMC). This allows the position circuits to determine where each scintillation event occurred in the detector crystal.

4.

Data Analysis Computer

Finally, in order to deal with the incoming projection data and to process it into a readable image of the 3D spatial distribution of activity within the patient, a processing computer is used. The computer may use various different methods to reconstruct an image, such as filtered back projection or iterative reconstruction, both of which are further described in this tutorial.

Low-energy gamma-ray imaging is very awkward and primitive in many respects. Above energy of about 10 keV, it is not possible to make focusing optics based on lenses or mirrors, and direct imaging is not practical. Then more complicated and cumbersome methods have to be employed, and a computer is required to reconstruct the image. Between about 10 keV and 1-2 MeV, imaging is usually done with any of several possible extensions of the pinhole camera, which are used in medicine and in gamma-ray astronomy. In medicine, such devices are often called gamma cameras; in astronomy, they are usually called coded-aperture instruments. Recall how for a pinhole camera an opaque screen with a small hole casts an inverted image on the opposite wall of the box. shows gamma rays entering from the right, to strike the detectors on the surface at the left. No lenses are required, although the box must be opaque -not entirely easy at, say, 511 keV. Notice that if there are multiple sources (let us say stars) on the right, each will cast its own image (really just a shadowgram) at a unique point on the right.

Thus the device actually creates an inverted image. The imaging surface could be photographic film, but this is too insensitive and non-linear for astronomical or medical use, so the little boxes in the image plane represent some kind of position- sensitive gamma-ray detector, such as an array of scintillation counters, each with its own PMT. So far, so good. There is a very serious problem, however. For a sharp image, we obviously need to make the hole as small as possible. Unfortunately, this makes the image extremely dim, in proportion to the area of the hole. (Normal cameras have it both ways by using a lens, which lets through lots of light, without the blur of a big hole.) If you want to take a picture of a nuclear bomb exploding, you can probably stop here; but for other purposes some method must be found to get more photons through the system.

ADVANTAGES & APPLICATIONS

Improved method for bone, lung, brain, breast cancer detection Greater lesion contrast Enhanced clinical spatial resolution Improved patient comfort Improved lesion localization capability Flexible detector positioning increases access to all areas of the breast Ability to mimic mammography views for co-registration The main advantage of Jefferson labs detectors is the compact size of the device which allows imaging of small lesions.

CONCLUSION
Gamma camera has been undergoing investigation for several years as a possible complementary tool to x-ray mammography in Breast cancer, Bone cancer detection, to lesion or to eliminate the need for painful biopsy procedure.