The Development of Mercuric Iodide Gamma-Radiation Detectors for Application in Nuclear Medicine

The feasibility of NaI(Tl) scintillators replacement by high energy resolution HgI2 detectors for rCBF measurements based on 133Xe inhalation technique has been investigated. Exhaustive phantom mapping has been carried out using 133Xe quasi-point sources. Comparative clinical rCBF measurements have been performed using the HgI2 and NaI(Tl) detectors simulaneously. The results show that the superior energy resolution of HgI2 compared to the NaI(Tl) and commercially available CdTe detectors allow efficient energy rejection of the scattered radiation, which improves considerably the spatial resolution of the rCBF instrumentation.