The effect of high-resolution parallel-hole collimator materials with a pixelated semiconductor SPECT system at equivalent sensitivities: Monte Carlo simulation studies

Abstract

In nuclear medicine, the use of a pixelated semiconductor detector with cadmium telluride (CdTe) or cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe) is of growing interest for new devices. Especially, the spatial resolution can be improved by using a pixelated parallel-hole collimator with equal holes and pixel sizes based on the above-mentioned detector. High-absorption and high-stopping-power pixelated parallel-hole collimator materials are often chosen because of their good spatial resolution. Capturing more gamma rays, however, may result in decreased sensitivity with the same collimator geometric designs. Therefore, a trade-off between spatial resolution and sensitivity is very important in nuclear medicine imaging. The purpose of this study was to compare spatial resolutions using a pixelated semiconductor single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) system with lead, tungsten, gold, and depleted uranium pixelated parallel-hole collimators at equal sensitivity. We performed a simulation study of the PID 350 (Ajat Oy Ltd., Finland) CdTe pixelated semiconductor detector (pixel size: 0.35 × 0.35 mm²) by using a Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission (GATE) simulation. Spatial resolutions were measured with different collimator materials at equivalent sensitivities. Additionally, hot-rod phantom images were acquired for each source-to-collimator distance by using a GATE simulation. At equivalent sensitivities, measured averages of the full width at half maximum (FWHM) using lead, tungsten, and gold were 4.32, 2.93, and 2.23% higher than that of depleted uranium, respectively. Furthermore, for the full width at tenth maximum (FWTM), measured averages when using lead, tungsten, and gold were 6.29, 4.10, and 2.65% higher than that of depleted uranium, respectively. Although, the spatial resolution showed little differences among the different pixelated parallel-hole collimator materials, lower absorption and stopping power materials such as lead and tungsten had relatively better characteristics at specific sensitivities.