Positron Emission Tomography Imaging

Facilities and Equipment

The rodent PET imager is GE eXplore Vista DR small animal PET scanner that is located in the IVISR in the Moores Cancer Center. It is designed to accurately quantify and visualize regional, time-varying distributions of positron-labeled radiopharmaceuticals.  The ring-type gantry with an aperture diameter of 8 cm and effective transverse field-of-view of 6 x 4.6 cm is designed for mice and rats.  The scanner is comprised of a gantry into which an animal imaging bed is inserted under computer control.  The scanner uses 36 high spatial resolution, dual scintillators, depth-of-interaction detector modules resulting in a total of 6084 detector elements, a crystal array pitch of 1.55 mm, and 28.8 million lines of coincidence.  The system provides a central spatial resolution of 1.6 mm (FWHM) and absolute central point source sensitivity of 4.0% in the 250-700 keV energy window.  The system software allows static, dynamic, whole-body, list mode, transmission and blank acquisitions in the 3D mode.  Image data analysis includes a 3D ROI tool and multimodality image viewing.