Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

We give design details and expected image results of a compact positron tomograph designed for prostate imaging that centers a patient between a pair of external curved detector banks (ellipse: 45 cm minor, 70 cm major axis). The bottom bank is fixed below the patient bed, and the top bank moves upward for patient access and downward for maximum sensitivity. Each bank is composed of two rows (axially) of 20 CTI PET Systems HR+ block detectors, forming two arcs that can be tilted to minimize attenuation. Compared to a conventional PET system, our camera uses about one-quarter the number of detectors and has almost two times higher solid angle coverage for a central point source, because the detectors are close to the patient. The detectors are read out by modified CTI HRRT data acquisition electronics. The individual detectors are angled in the plane to point towards the prostate to minimize reso