A concept of cylindrical Compton camera for SPECT

A novel concept of a Compton camera for SPECT is proposed. The camera consists of two concentric cylindrical detectors that operate in coincidence. The camera is triggered by Compton scatter events in the inner (scatter) detector. The scattered photons are then detected in the outer (absorption) detector. If both detectors have excellent energy and three-dimensional (3D) spatial resolutions, such a camera could make 3D imaging possible with appropriate reconstruction algorithms. In this paper, the authors estimate the potential performance of the cylindrical Compton camera that is made up of argon-gas or silicon-based scatter detector and a xenon-gas absorption detector.