Single Photon Emission Mammography

The SPEM project ia aimed at the development of a novel imaging technique based on single photon emission tomography (SPECT) for breast cancer investigation. The main objective is to overcome the present limitations in detecting small breast tumours of existing clinical instruments.
The goal is the construction of a SPEM (Single Photon Emission Mammography) based of a pair of compact rotating planar detectors, characterized by high resolution and high sensitivity. The design will be optimized in order to better fit with the breast anatomy, so as to increase the spatial resolution and o reduce the effect of the background from the thorax.
The project design is shown in Figure 1

Figure 1: The overall project design including both SPEM and CT scanners. The two SPEM heads are positioned on opposite sides with respect the pendulum breast.

Each detector head will be based on a scintillating crystals coupled to a parallel hole collimator and read out by an array of three multi-anode PMT H8500 by Hamamatsu. Each PMT will be read out via a dedicated semi-active resistive network and acquired with a dedicated and compact electronic board (Figure 2)

Figure 2: Possible scheme of the readout of a SPEM detector head.

The scanner will be then tested on patients using 99m-Tc-based radiotracers.
The project is performed in collaboration with the University of Rome "La Sapienza", the University of Bologna and the Nuclear Medicine Division of the University Hospital "S. Chiara" in Pisa, within the framework of a larger project ("Development of novel imaging techniques for breast tumor investigation") funded by the Italian Government (MIUR).