Radiation position detector, PET device, and recording medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9759820-B2
Application number	US-201615333350-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 25, 2016
Priority date	Oct 28, 2015
Publication date	Sep 12, 2017
Grant date	Sep 12, 2017

Abstract

A scintillator array including a plurality of scintillators, an optical detector array corresponding to the scintillators, an AD conversion unit configured to convert an analog signal output from each optical detector into digital data, and a position detection processing unit configured to specify a position of the scintillator on which the radiation is incident are provided. If there are two different pieces of digital data at the same time, the position detection processing unit determines that radiation is incident on two scintillators when energy value data of the two pieces of digital data is greater than an energy value of a Compton edge and specifies the address of the scintillator on which the radiation is incident by comparing the energy values of the two pieces of digital data when at least one of the two energy values is less than the energy value of the Compton edge.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A radiation position detector comprising:
a scintillator array including a plurality of scintillators on which radiation is incident;
an optical detector array including a plurality of optical detectors corresponding one-to-one to the scintillators of the scintillator array;
an AD conversion unit configured to convert an analog signal output from each optical detector of the optical detector array into digital data; and
a position detection processing unit configured to specify a position of the scintillator on which the radiation is incident on the basis of the digital data obtained through the conversion by the AD conversion unit,
wherein the digital data has at least time data corresponding to a time at which the radiation is incident, energy value data corresponding to a value of detected energy, and position data corresponding to an address of the scintillator in the scintillator array, and
wherein the position detection processing unit includes:
an energy comparison unit configured to compare, if there are two different pieces of digital data having time data indicating the same time, energy value data of the two pieces of digital data with an energy value of a Compton edge; and
a position determination unit configured to determine that the radiation is incident on the scintillators corresponding to the position data of the two pieces of digital data when both energy values of the two pieces of digital data are greater than the energy value of the Compton edge and specify the address of the scintillator on which the radiation is incident by comparing the energy values of the two pieces of digital data when at least one of the energy values of the two pieces of digital data is less than the energy value of the Compton edge, on the basis of a comparison result of the energy comparison unit.

2. The radiation position detector according to claim 1 , wherein the position detection processing unit includes a window comparison unit configured to compare the energy value data of the digital data with a window having a predetermined energy width if there is only one piece of the digital data having the time data indicating the same time and specify the address of the scintillator on which the radiation is incident on the basis of the position data of the digital data when the energy value data is within a range of the window.

3. The radiation position detector according to claim 1 ,
wherein the plurality of scintillators are arranged in a matrix shape in the scintillator array, and
wherein the energy comparison unit performs comparison when the scintillators corresponding to the two pieces of digital data are vertically, horizontally, or obliquely adjacent to each other or further vertically, horizontally, or obliquely separated at a distance of one scintillator from positions adjacent to each other.

4. The radiation position detector according to claim 1 ,
wherein the plurality of scintillators are arranged in a matrix shape in the scintillator array, and
wherein the energy comparison unit performs comparison when the scintillators corresponding to the two pieces of digital data are vertically, horizontally, or obliquely adjacent to each other.

5. The radiation position detector according to any one of claim 1 ,
wherein, when only one of the two pieces of digital data has the energy value data greater than or equal to the energy value of the Compton edge, the position determination unit determines that the radiation is incident on the scintillator corresponding to the position data of the other digital data, and
wherein, when both of the two pieces of digital data have the energy value data less than the energy value of the Compton edge, the position determination unit determines that the radiation is incident on the scintillator corresponding to the position data of the digital data having a high energy value.

6. The radiation position detector according to any one of claim 1 ,
wherein a pair of optical detector arrays are provided in front of and behind the scintillator array,
wherein the position detection processing unit further includes an angle determination unit configured to obtain depths of interaction positions of the radiation in the two scintillators by DOI detection and obtain an angle in-between two points of the interaction positions with respect to a direction perpendicular to an extending direction of the scintillator,
wherein, when only one of the two pieces of digital data has the energy value data greater than or equal to the energy value of the Compton edge, the position determination unit determines that the radiation is incident on the scintillator of the address of the other digital data, and
wherein, when both of the two pieces of digital data have the energy value data less than the energy value of the Compton edge, the position determination unit determines the scintillator corresponding to a piece of the digital data for which the radiation is incident on the basis of a difference between the two pieces of energy value data and the angle in-between the two points.

7. The radiation position detector according to claim 6 ,
wherein the position determination unit determines that the radiation is incident on the scintillator corresponding to the position data of the digital data having high energy value data when the angle in-between the two points obtained by the angle determination unit is greater than 30 degrees if both of the energy values of the two pieces of digital data are less than energy of the Compton edge, and
wherein the position determination unit determines that the radiation is incident on the scintillator corresponding to one piece of the digital data on the basis of a difference between energy value data in the two scintillators and the angle in-between the two points when the angle in-between the two points obtained by the angle determination unit is less than the 30 degrees.

8. A PET device including the radiation position detector according to any one of claim 1 .

9. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium recording a program for causing a computer to execute a process of specifying a position of a scintillator on which radiation is incident on the basis of digital data obtained through conversion by an AD conversion unit and having at least time data corresponding to a time at which the radiation is incident, energy value data corresponding to a value of detected energy, and position data corresponding to an address of the scintillator in a scintillator array in a radiation position detector including the scintillator array including a plurality of scintillators on which the radiation is incident, an optical detector array including a plurality of optical detectors corresponding one-to-one to the scintillators of the scintillator array, and the AD conversion unit configured to convert an analog signal output from each optical detector of the optical detector array into the digital data, the process comprising; an energy comparison step of comparing, if there are two
different pieces of digital data having time data indicating the same time, energy value data of the two pieces of digital data with an energy value of a Compton edge; and
a position determination step of specifying the position of the scintillator on which the radiation is incident from the position data of the digital data on the basis of a comparison result of the energy comparison step.

Assignees

• Hamamatsu Photonics Kk

Inventors

• Ota Ryosuke
• Yamada Ryoko
• Omura Tomohide
• Watanabe Mitsuo

Classifications

• G01T1/2006 Primary

  using a combination of a scintillator and photodetector which measures the means radiation intensity · CPC title

• G01T1/2985 Primary

  In 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); (using external radiation sources A61B6/02) · CPC title