Line of research: RPC-based Positron Emission Tomography
Project abstract:
The project is led by Prof. Paulo Fonte and aims at developing two positron emission tomography (PET) systems. One will be dedicated to very-high resolution imaging of small animals, and one should allow for whole-body, single-bed human time-of-flight PET. The project is based on the extension to nuclear medicine of detector technology that is well established in high energy physics: resistive plate chambers (RPC).
Collaborating institutions:
LIP -
Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas
UC -
University of Coimbra, namely its
Physics Department, together with
ICNAS
ISEC -
Instituto Superior de Engenharia de CoimbraSome publications/presentations:
P. Martins, A. Blanco, P. Crespo, M.F. Ferreira Marques,
R. Ferreira Marques, P.M. Gordo, M. Kajetanowicz,
G. Korcyl, L. Lopes, J. Michel, M. Palka, M. Traxler, P. Fonte,
Achieving 0.4-mm FWHM spatial resolution with an
RPC-based small-animal PET prototype,
2013 IEEE Nucl. Sci. Symp. & Med. Imag. Conf. (NSS/MIC),
Oct. 27-Nov. 2, 2013, Seoul, South Korea
P. Crespo, A. Blanco, M. Couceiro, N.C. Ferreira, R. Ferreira Marques,
L. Lopes, P. Martins, P. Fonte,
Positron emission tomography based on resistive plate chambers,
Symposium on Applied Nuclear Physics and Innovative
Technologies, University of Cracow, Jun. 3-6, 2013
P. Crespo, A. Blanco, M. Couceiro, N.C. Ferreira, L. Lopes, P. Martins,
R. Ferreira Marques, P. Fonte,
Resistive plate chambers in positron emission tomography,
Eur. Phys. J. Plus 128:7 (2013) 73
P. Martins, M. Couceiro, N.C. Ferreira, R. Ferreira Marques,
P. Fonte, L. Mendes, P. Crespo,
On lesion detectability by means of 300 ps-FWHM TOF whole-body RPC-PET:
an experiment-based simulation study,
In Conf. Records 2012 IEEE Nucl. Sci. Symp. & Med. Imag. Conf. (NSS/MIC),
Anaheim, CA, USA, Oct. 2012, 2440-2444
P. Martins, P. Crespo, R. Ferreira Marques, M. Kajetanowicz,
G. Korcyl, L. Lopes, J. Michel, M. Palka, M. Traxler, P. Fonte,
Experimental sub-millimeter resolution with a small-animal RPC-PET
prototype,
In Conf. Records 2012 IEEE Nucl. Sci. Symp. & Med. Imag. Conf. (NSS/MIC),
Anaheim, CA, USA, Oct. 2012, pp. 3760-3764
M. Couceiro, P. Crespo, R. Ferreira Marques, P. Fonte,
Scatter fraction, count rates, and noise equivalent count
rate of an RPC-PET TOF system: simulation study following
the NEMA NU2-2001 standards,
In Conf. Records 2012 IEEE Nucl. Sci. Symp. & Med. Imag. Conf. (NSS/MIC),
Anaheim, CA, USA, Oct. 2012, pp. 2651-2660
P. Crespo, J. Reis, M. Couceiro, A. Blanco, N.C. Ferreira,
R. Ferreira Marques, P. Martins, P. Fonte,
Whole-body single-bed time-of-flight RPC-PET:
simulation of axial and planar sensitivities with NEMA and
anthropomorphic phantoms,
IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci 59 (2012) 520-529
M. Couceiro, P. Crespo, L. Mendes, N. Ferreira,
R. Ferreira Marques, P. Fonte,
Spatial resolution of human RPC-PET system,
Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 661 (2012) 5156-5158
P. Martins, A. Blanco, F. Caramelo, M. Couceiro, N.C. Ferreira,
R. Ferreira Marques, P. Fonte, L. Mendes, P. Crespo,
A direct time-of-flight reconstruction for whole-body single-bed
RPC-PET: results from lesion and anthropomorphic simulated data,
In Conf. Records 2011 IEEE Nucl. Sci. Symp. & Med. Imag. Conf. (NSS/MIC),
Oct. 23-29, 2011, pp. 2610-2616
A. Blanco, M. Couceiro, P. Crespo, N.C. Ferreira,
R. Ferreira Marques, P. Fonte, L. Lopes, J.A. Neves,
Efficiency of RPC detectors for whole-body human TOF-PET,
Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A. 602 (2009) 780-783