A large field of view positron emission mammography imager

Dedicated positron emission mammography (PEM) systems provide a potentially high sensitivity, high-resolution, low attenuation and lower cost alternative to whole body PET. We have designed, built, and performed initial evaluation of a large field-of-view PEM system. This system uses two 15 cm /spl times/ 20 cm planar detectors. Each detector has an array of 3 mm /spl times/ 3 mm /spl times/ 10 mm LGSO (90% LSO, 10% GSO) scintillator crystals read out by an 6 /spl times/ 8 array of 25 mm /spl times/ 25 mm position-sensitive photomultipliers. The detectors are mounted on a gantry that is used in conjunction with an X-ray mammography unit such that when the film holder is rotated away the upper detector is above the compression paddle, which is used to compress the breast against the lower PEM detector.