Dirk Meier1, Douglas J. Wagenaar2,
Gunnar Maehlum1, Bjoern Sundal1, Bradley E. Patt2,
Si Chen3, Jingyan Xu3, Jianhua Yu3, Benjamin
M.W. Tsui3, Mark J. Hamamura4, Seunghoon Ha4,
W. W. Roeck4, Orhan Nalcioglu4
1Gamma Medica - Ideas, Fornebu, Norway;
2Gamma Medica - Ideas, Northridge, CA, United States; 3Johns
Hopkins University, MD, United States; 4University of California
at Irvine, CA, United States
We
experimentally demonstrate the feasibility of operating a small animal SPECT
system outside and inside a 3 Tesla MRI system with simultaneous data
acquisition of both modalities. Unlike traditional SPECT systems, which are
based on photomultiplier tubes, our SPECT system is based on MR-compatible
semiconductor radiation detectors. The detectors surround the field-of-view
and do not rotate. In the present study we acquired images from mice using
the SPECT and the MRI. We investigate the performance of the SPECT system
with and without the MRI. We believe that the combined SPECT/MRI system will open
new opportunities in molecular imaging.