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CN107320121B - Positron emission tomography photon detection device - Google Patents

Positron emission tomography photon detection device Download PDF

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CN107320121B
CN107320121B CN201610279904.1A CN201610279904A CN107320121B CN 107320121 B CN107320121 B CN 107320121B CN 201610279904 A CN201610279904 A CN 201610279904A CN 107320121 B CN107320121 B CN 107320121B
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scintillator
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circuit
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CN107320121A (en
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陆婷
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Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare Co Ltd
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    • GPHYSICS
    • G01MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01TMEASUREMENT OF NUCLEAR OR X-RADIATION
    • G01T1/00Measuring X-radiation, gamma radiation, corpuscular radiation, or cosmic radiation
    • G01T1/29Measurement performed on radiation beams, e.g. position or section of the beam; Measurement of spatial distribution of radiation
    • G01T1/2914Measurement of spatial distribution of radiation
    • G01T1/2985In depth localisation, e.g. using positron emitters; Tomographic imaging (longitudinal and transverse section imaging; apparatus for radiation diagnosis sequentially in different planes, steroscopic radiation diagnosis)
    • AHUMAN NECESSITIES
    • A61MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE
    • A61BDIAGNOSIS; SURGERY; IDENTIFICATION
    • A61B6/00Apparatus or devices for radiation diagnosis; Apparatus or devices for radiation diagnosis combined with radiation therapy equipment
    • A61B6/02Arrangements for diagnosis sequentially in different planes; Stereoscopic radiation diagnosis
    • A61B6/03Computed tomography [CT]
    • A61B6/037Emission tomography
    • GPHYSICS
    • G01MEASURING; TESTING
    • G01TMEASUREMENT OF NUCLEAR OR X-RADIATION
    • G01T1/00Measuring X-radiation, gamma radiation, corpuscular radiation, or cosmic radiation
    • G01T1/16Measuring radiation intensity
    • G01T1/20Measuring radiation intensity with scintillation detectors
    • G01T1/202Measuring radiation intensity with scintillation detectors the detector being a crystal

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Abstract

The invention discloses a positron emission tomography photon detection device which comprises a detection array consisting of a plurality of detection units, wherein each detection unit comprises at least one scintillator device, at least one photoelectric conversion device is coupled to each scintillator device, and each photoelectric conversion device is respectively connected with an energy signal reading circuit and a time signal reading circuit for detecting events. The photon detection device provided by the invention has the advantages of better time detection precision and lower cost.

Description

Positron emission tomography photon detection device
[ technical field ] A method for producing a semiconductor device
The invention relates to the technical field of positron emission tomography, in particular to a photon detection device for positron emission tomography.
[ background of the invention ]
With the development of PET (Positron Emission Tomography) imaging technology, PET scanning devices have been widely used in the medical field. The PET scanning device is an advanced medical diagnosis imaging device, and has become an indispensable important device in the diagnosis and pathological research of tumor, heart and brain diseases. In a PET scan, a patient is first injected with a radiopharmaceutical, which is a tracer synthesized from a radionuclide that converts a proton to a neutron and releases a positron and a micronon, with compounds required for human metabolism, such as glucose, choline, acetic acid, and the like. The mass of the positron is equal to that of the electron, and the electric quantity of the positron is the same as that of the electron, but the sign is opposite. This positron travels a short distance in the body tissue, i.e. interacts with electrons in the surrounding material, generating annihilation radiation, emitting two photons of opposite, equal energy (511keV), which are coincident detected, and the location of the annihilation event is reconstructed analytically or statistically, forming the basis of the PET.
The application Of TOF (Time Of Flight) technology to PET is a further improvement over conventional PET imaging technology. Because the transmission of photons is carried out at the speed of light, and the annihilation positions of positrons are different, the time for the photon pair generated by the same annihilation event to reach a detector is different, the TOF technology can estimate the approximate position of the annihilation event on the coincidence line determined by the coincidence detection according to the speed of light by measuring the time difference of the two photons of the photon pair reaching a detector ring, thereby directly determining the distribution of radioactive nuclides (tracers) in organs and tissues and obviously providing the acquisition sensitivity and the image resolution.
A photon detection apparatus for PET includes a PET front-end circuit. In the known art: the PET front-end circuit uses a PMT (photo multiplier Tube) array to detect fluorescence of photons reaching a detector crystal (scintillator) and decode annihilation events, but because high voltage is required for power supply of the PMT and each PMT is installed and maintained as a separate individual, the PET is poor in stability and complex to install; compared with a novel PET front-end circuit, the novel PET front-end circuit detects fluorescence of crystals based on SIPM (Silicon Photomultipliers) arrays, each SIPM is independently coupled with one crystal to record occurrence of annihilation events, so that when the number of the detector crystals is large, the number of the corresponding SIPMs is increased, signals needing to be processed by the rear-end circuit are increased, and the size of the rear-end circuit is huge; in addition, the size of the crystal of the detector is limited due to the size of the SIPM, so that the size of the crystal cannot be changed at will; the improved PET front-end circuit is based on a SIPM array to detect the fluorescence of crystals, every four SIPMs are coupled with a crystal Block, but due to the fact that the SIPMs are longer in decay time and slower in signal, the dead time of the whole front-end circuit is too long, and the TOF performance (time detection accuracy) is poor.
Therefore, there is a need for a new photon detection device with better time detection accuracy and lower cost.
[ summary of the invention ]
The invention solves the problem that the existing positron emission tomography photon detection device has poor time detection precision.
In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a photon detection apparatus for positron emission tomography, including a detection array composed of a plurality of detection units, where the detection unit includes at least one scintillator, and at least one photoelectric conversion device is coupled to each scintillator, and each photoelectric conversion device is connected to an energy signal readout circuit and a time signal readout circuit for detecting events.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the photoelectric conversion devices coupled to the same scintillator are connected to the same time signal readout circuit.
In one embodiment of the present invention, in the detection unit, 4 photoelectric conversion devices are coupled to the same scintillator.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the scintillator is a cube, and the 4 photoelectric conversion devices are coupled to the same surface of the scintillator.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the energy signal readout circuit includes a row signal readout channel and a column signal readout channel, and the row and column information of the energy signal is read out through the channels respectively, so as to determine the position information of the detection event in the detection array.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the energy signal readout circuit includes a first differentiating circuit, and the first differentiating circuit sums and decodes signals of each row and column to obtain the position information.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the time signal readout circuit includes a second differentiating circuit, and the time signal of the photoelectric conversion device coupled to the same scintillator is accelerated by the second differentiating circuit.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the photoelectric conversion device is a SIPM device.
In one embodiment of the invention, the scintillator is a LYSO crystal.
Compared with the prior art, the invention has the following beneficial effects: the energy information and the time information of the detection event are processed separately, so that the original signals with slow rising edge and long decay time become very fast, the accumulation of the detection event is greatly reduced, the detection device still has better time precision under high counting, and the TOF performance of the detection device is improved.
[ description of the drawings ]
FIG. 1 is a schematic structural view of a positron emission tomography photon detection device;
FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a scintillator array according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a probe array structure according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of an energy signal readout circuit according to an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a time signal readout circuit according to an embodiment of the invention.
[ detailed description ] embodiments
In order to make the aforementioned objects, features and advantages of the present invention comprehensible, embodiments accompanied with figures are described in detail below.
Figure 1 is a schematic structural view of a positron emission tomography photon detection apparatus, depicted as an illustrative example, in Positron Emission Tomography (PET), a radiopharmaceutical is injected into an imaging subject whose radioactive decay events produce positrons. Each positron interacts with an electron to produce two oppositely directed gamma (γ) photons. The gamma photons are detected by the detection device and coincidence verified by the system and counted by the line of response to reconstruct the image. The photon detection device for positron emission tomography provided by the invention comprises a detection array consisting of a plurality of detection units 100. As shown in fig. 1, the detection array is annularly disposed around the detected object, and when the detection units constituting the detection array detect a photon event 200, the energy information, time information, and position information of the detected photon are collected, converted, and fed back to the system for subsequent processing.
The detection unit 100 may be formed by coupling a scintillator device and a photoelectric conversion device, and when gamma photons enter the detector, if they interact with the scintillator device, fluorescence is generated, and the fluorescence is converted into an electrical signal (multiplication and amplification) by the photoelectric conversion device. The scintillator device may be comprised of a scintillation crystal or an array of scintillation crystals. According to one embodiment of the invention, as shown in FIG. 2, the scintillator device 101 is comprised of an array of scintillation crystals, which are typically assembled by bonding a plurality of scintillation crystals, with an additional reflective layer, and with optical glue. In general, the individual scintillation crystals are designed as regular cuboids. In order to combine it with a photoelectric conversion device, one surface of a scintillator crystal array needs to be made relatively flat, and optical coupling with a photoelectric conversion device is performed by a grinding process. In terms of materials, the scintillation crystal array may be a BGO (bismuth germanate) crystal array, or a LYSO (yttrium lutetium silicate) crystal array, or a LSO (lutetium silicate) crystal array, etc. The photoelectric conversion device may be a PMT (photomultiplier tube), an APD (avalanche photodiode), or SIPM (silicon photomultiplier tube). The LYSO scintillation crystal has the characteristics of high light output, quick decay time, high detection efficiency, low cost and the like, compared with other photoelectric conversion devices, the SIPM has the characteristics of high gain, low working voltage, strong anti-interference capability and the like, and the combination of the SIPM and other photoelectric conversion devices can be used as a preferred embodiment of the invention.
As shown in fig. 3(a), (b), in an embodiment according to the present invention, each detecting unit of the detecting array is formed by coupling 4 photoelectric conversion devices (SIPM) in the same plane of a scintillator device (LYSO scintillator array, for example), according to a variation of this embodiment, other numbers of photoelectric conversion devices may be coupled to the same scintillator device, for example, 9:1, 16: 1, or N:1, where N is a × b, and a and b are the number of rows and columns of single crystal columns in the scintillation crystal array, as shown in fig. 3 (c). On the premise of the same size of the scintillator device, the higher proportion of the photoelectric conversion device and the scintillator device is coupled, which is more beneficial to improving the sensitivity of the detector and ensuring that the anti-accumulation performance of the detector is better.
When a photon event is detected, the electrical signals generated by the photoelectric conversion devices of the detection units can be used to determine photon energy (energy signal, i.e. anode signal) information and event occurrence time information (time signal, i.e. fast signal), as well as to determine the position information of the photoelectric conversion devices generating the electrical signals in the detection matrix. The energy signal is characterized by a large signal amplitude but a slow readout. The time signal is characterized by a small signal amplitude but a fast readout. According to the difference, each photoelectric conversion device is respectively connected with an energy signal reading circuit and a time signal reading circuit for detecting events, so that the energy (position) signals and the time signals are respectively and independently read, and the time precision of the detection device is improved.
Fig. 4 is a schematic of the structure of an energy signal readout circuit in an embodiment in accordance with the invention. An energy signal readout circuit of the detection event, namely an anode signal readout circuit, is used for determining the photon energy detected by the photoelectric conversion devices, further, each photoelectric conversion device in the detection array (such as SIPMs 102a, 102b, 102c and 102d coupled to the same scintillator device) is connected with a row signal readout circuit and a column signal readout circuit, each row readout circuit comprises a row differential circuit (differential adder 103 and ADC signal conversion device 105), each column readout circuit comprises a column differential circuit (differential adder 104 and ADC signal conversion device 106), differential summation and signal conversion are carried out on each row and column signal through the row and column differential circuit, Decoding and calculation and other operations are carried out through a Decoding unit 107(Decoding unit), the position information of the detection event in the detection matrix can be obtained at the same time of obtaining the energy signal.
Fig. 5 is a schematic of the structure of a time signal readout circuit in an embodiment according to the present invention. In this embodiment, according to the characteristics of small amplitude and fast readout of Time signals, the photoelectric conversion devices coupled to the same scintillator device are connected to the same Time signal readout circuit (for example, SIPMs 102a, 102b, 102c, and 102d coupled to the same scintillator device share the same Time signal readout circuit), and further, each Time signal readout circuit is independently connected to a differentiating circuit (differentiating unit 108), the Time signals of the photoelectric conversion devices coupled to the same scintillator are accelerated by the differentiating circuit, and after the triggering signal is generated by the comparator 109, the triggering signal is transmitted to a TDC unit 110 (Time-to-Digital Converter), so as to calculate the Time information of the event occurring in the scintillator device.
According to the invention, according to the electronic difference of the energy signal and the time signal of the detection event in the photoelectric conversion device, an energy signal reading circuit and a time signal reading circuit which are independent of each other are respectively designed for each photoelectric conversion device, and the time precision and the TOF performance of the whole detection device are improved by adding a differential circuit.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments, it is not intended to limit the present invention, and those skilled in the art can make variations and modifications of the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention by using the methods and technical contents disclosed above.

Claims (3)

1. A positron emission tomography photon detection device comprising a detection array comprised of a plurality of detection units, characterized in that: the detection unit comprises at least one scintillator device, at least one photoelectric conversion device is coupled to each scintillator device, and each photoelectric conversion device is respectively connected with an energy signal readout circuit and a time signal readout circuit which are mutually independent and used for detecting events;
the photoelectric conversion devices coupled to the same scintillator device are connected to a same time signal readout circuit;
the time signal reading circuit comprises a differential circuit, and the time signal of the photoelectric conversion device coupled to the same scintillator is accelerated through the differential circuit;
the energy signal reading circuit comprises a row signal reading channel and a column signal reading channel, row and column information of the energy signal is read through the channels respectively, and position information of the detection event in the detection array is determined;
the photoelectric conversion device is a SIPM device; the scintillator device is a crystal array formed by a plurality of scintillation crystal columns, and the scintillation crystal columns are LYSO crystals.
2. The photon detection apparatus of claim 1, wherein 4 of the photoelectric conversion devices in the detection unit are coupled to the same scintillator device.
3. The photon detection apparatus of claim 2, wherein the crystal array has at least one planar surface, the 4 photoelectric conversion devices being coupled to the planar surface of the scintillator device.
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CN108181331A (en) * 2017-12-20 2018-06-19 上海联影医疗科技有限公司 A kind of signal detection circuit and detector
CN109991651B (en) * 2017-12-29 2024-09-20 苏州瑞派宁科技有限公司 Measurement device and measurement method for spatial resolution of PET (positron emission tomography) system
CN108294771B (en) * 2018-01-02 2021-07-13 东软医疗系统股份有限公司 Positron emission computed tomography detector device
CN108535770B (en) * 2018-05-09 2024-01-02 同方威视技术股份有限公司 Afterglow detection device and afterglow detection method
CN109459783B (en) * 2018-09-30 2023-04-11 中派科技(深圳)有限责任公司 PET device, multilayer crystal PET detector, electronic readout module and method thereof
CN110368014B (en) * 2019-07-19 2023-10-31 沈阳智核医疗科技有限公司 Crystal array for a PET detector, detector ring and PET detector
CN110426730B (en) * 2019-07-19 2022-11-01 东软医疗系统股份有限公司 Signal reading circuit, signal reading method and device
CN113069138B (en) * 2021-03-23 2023-06-30 上海联影医疗科技股份有限公司 Positron emission tomography device, coincidence efficiency detection method and normalization method
CN113786209A (en) * 2021-09-16 2021-12-14 华中科技大学 An ultra-sensitive polyhedral brain PET system

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