A cylindrical geometry for cardiac SPECT imaging

In SPECT imaging, a cylindrical detector geometry offers many advantages. Because the detector completely surrounds the patient, the cylindrical system geometry should provide more detector coverage than the rotating camera SPECT systems. This increased coverage means increased sensitivity, or improved resolution, and better image quality. Because the cylindrical detector system is stationary and the projection data is acquired through collimator rotation, this geometry simplifies system design and allows very stable imaging performance. The authors propose a cylindrical system geometry that features a large number of projections for a small FOV located at the center of the gantry. This geometry has potential for cardiac SPECT imaging, provided that the patient's body can be offset properly and reliably to place his heart in the specified FOV. General design issues and potential configurations for such a cardiac SPECT system are presented.