• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.439-443
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• 2019

To improve the noise characteristics, software-based noise reduction algorithms are widely used in cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) pixelated semiconductor gamma camera system. The purpose of this study was to develop an improved median filtering algorithm using a thresholding method for noise reduction in a CZT pixelated semiconductor gamma camera system. The gamma camera system simulated is a CZT pixelated semiconductor detector with a pixel-matched parallel-hole collimator and the spatial resolution phatnom was designed with the Geant4 Application for Tomography Emission (GATE). In addition, a noise reduction algorithm with a median filter using an improved thresholding method is developed and we applied our proposed algorithm to an acquired spatial resolution phantom image. According to the results, the proposed median filter improved the noise characteristics compared to a conventional median filter. In particular, the average for normalized noise power spectrum, contrast to noise ratio, and coefficient of variation results using the proposed median filter were 10, 1.11, and 1.19 times better than results using conventional median filter, respectively. In conclusion, our results show that the proposed median filter using improved the thresholding method results in high imaging performance when applied in a CZT semiconductor gamma camera system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.1947-1954
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• 2021

In the nuclear medicine imaging, quality control (QC) process using quadrant bar phantom is fundamental aspect of evaluating the spatial resolution. In addition, QC process of gamma camera is performed by daily or weekly. Recently, Monte Carlo simulation using the Geant4 application for tomographic emission (GATE) is widely applied in the pre-clinical nuclear medicine field for modeling gamma cameras with pixelated cadmium telluride (CdTe) semiconductor detector. In this study, we modeled a pixelated CdTe semiconductor detector and quadrant bar phantom (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mm bar thicknesses) using the GATE tool. Similarity analysis based on correlation coefficients and peak signal-to-noise ratios was performed to compare image qualities for various source to collimator distances (0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 cm) and collimator lengths (0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0 cm). To this end, we selected reference images based on collimator length and source to collimator distance settings. The results demonstrate that as the collimator length increases and the source to collimator distance decreases, the similarity to reference images improves. Therefore, our simulation results represent valuable information for the modeling of CdTe-based semiconductor gamma imaging systems and QC phantoms in the field of nuclear medicine.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.663-668
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• 2016

In single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT) with a pixelated semiconductor detector (PSD), not only pinhole collimators but also parallel-hole collimators are often used in preclinical nuclear-medicine imaging systems. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare pinhole and parallel-hole collimators in a PSD. For that purpose, we paired a PID 350 (Ajat Oy Ltd., Finland) CdTe PSD with each of the four collimators most frequently used in preclinical nuclear medicine: (1) a pinhole collimator, and (2) low-energy high-resolution (LEHR), (3) low-energy general-purpose (LEGP), and (4) low-energy high-sensitivity (LEHS) parallel-hole collimators. The sensitivity and spatial resolution of each collimator was evaluated using a point source and a hot-rod phantom. The highest sensitivity was achieved using LEHS, followed by LEGP, LEHR, and pinhole. Also, at a source-to-collimator distance of 2 cm, the spatial resolution was 1.63, 2.05, 2.79, and 3.45 mm using pinhole, LEHR, LEGP, and LEHS, respectively. The reconstructed hot-rod phantom images showed that the pinhole collimator and the LEHR parallel-hole collimator give a fine spatial resolution for preclinical SPECT with PSD. In conclusion, we successfully compared different types of collimators for a preclinical pixelated semiconductor SPECT system.