A high detection efficiency BGO, flow-through, coincidence detection system for arterial blood sampling with PET: application and dispersion correction for small animal PET studies

A high detection efficiency BGO coincidence detection system has been designed and built for applications to arterial blood sampling in small animals and PET. The detection system uses four BGO detectors in a novel configuration to provide a small central opening with very high sensitivity for insertion of small volume flow-through blood sampling tubing. The performance of the system has been characterized for dead-time losses and randoms. The dispersion function for the flow-through sampling was measured by the step function of concentration and is used to deconvolute the arterial blood concentration. Arterial blood sampling from rabbit PET studies were collected and validated against manual withdrawal of blood samples, and a good correlation was obtained after correction for dispersion function. The system is in routine use with small rabbit preparations for measurement of myocardial blood flow with the Hamamatsu Animal PET system.