Cabello, J., Torres-Espallardo, I., Gillam, J. E., & Rafecas, M. (2013). PET Reconstruction From Truncated Projections Using Total-Variation Regularization for Hadron Therapy Monitoring. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 60(5), 3364–3372.
Abstract: Hadron therapy exploits the properties of ion beams to treat tumors by maximizing the dose released to the target and sparing healthy tissue. With hadron beams, the dose distribution shows a relatively low entrance dose which rises sharply at the end of the range, providing the characteristic Bragg peak that drops quickly thereafter. It is of critical importance in order not to damage surrounding healthy tissues and/or avoid targeting underdosage to know where the delivered dose profile ends-the location of the Bragg peak. During hadron therapy, short-lived beta(+)-emitters are produced along the beam path, their distribution being correlated with the delivered dose. Following positron annihilation, two photons are emitted, which can be detected using a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner. The low yield of emitters, their short half-life, and the wash out from the target region make the use of PET, even only a few minutes after hadron irradiation, a challenging application. In-beam PET represents a potential candidate to estimate the distribution of beta(+)-emitters during or immediately after irradiation, at the cost of truncation effects and degraded image quality due to the partial rings required of the PET scanner. Time-of-flight (ToF) information can potentially be used to compensate for truncation effects and to enhance image contrast. However, the highly demanding timing performance required in ToF-PET makes this option costly. Alternatively, the use of maximum-a-posteriori-expectation-maximization (MAP-EM), including total variation (TV) in the cost function, produces images with low noise, while preserving spatial resolution. In this paper, we compare data reconstructed with maximum-likelihood-expectation-maximization (ML-EM) and MAP-EM using TV as prior, and the impact of including ToF information, from data acquired with a complete and a partial-ring PET scanner, of simulated hadron beams interacting with a polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) target. The results show that MAP-EM, in the absence of ToF information, produces lower noise images and more similar data compared to the simulated beta(+) distributions than ML-EM with ToF information in the order of 200-600 ps. The investigation is extended to the combination of MAP-EM and ToF information to study the limit of performance using both approaches.
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Brown, J. M. C., Gillam, J. E., Paganin, D. M., & Dimmock, M. R. (2013). Laplacian Erosion: An Image Deblurring Technique for Multi-Plane Gamma-Cameras. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 60(5), 3333–3342.
Abstract: Laplacian Erosion, an image deblurring technique for multi-plane Gamma-cameras, has been developed and tested for planar imaging using a GEANT4 Monte Carlo model of the Pixelated Emission Detector for RadioisOtopes (PEDRO) as a test platform. A contrast and Derenzo-like phantom composed of I-125 were both employed to investigate the dependence of detection plane and pinhole geometry on the performance of Laplacian Erosion. Three different pinhole geometries were tested. It was found that, for the test system, the performance of Laplacian Erosion was inversely proportional to the detection plane offset, and directly proportional to the pinhole diameter. All tested pinhole geometries saw a reduction in the level of image blurring associated with the pinhole geometry. However, the reduction in image blurring came at the cost of signal to noise ratio in the image. The application of Laplacian Erosion was shown to reduce the level of image blurring associated with pinhole geometry and improve recovered image quality in multi-plane Gamma-cameras for the targeted radiotracer I-125.
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Briz, J. A., Nerio, A. N., Ballesteros, C., Borge, M. J. G., Martinez, P., Perea, A., et al. (2022). Proton Radiographs Using Position-Sensitive Silicon Detectors and High-Resolution Scintillators. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 69(4), 696–702.
Abstract: Proton therapy is a cancer treatment technique currently in growth since it offers advantages with respect to conventional X-ray and gamma-ray radiotherapy. In particular, better control of the dose deposition allowing to reach higher conformity in the treatments causing less secondary effects. However, in order to take full advantage of its potential, improvements in treatment planning and dose verification are required. A new prototype of proton computed tomography scanner is proposed to design more accurate and precise treatment plans for proton therapy. Our prototype is formed by double-sided silicon strip detectors and scintillators of LaBr3(Ce) with high energy resolution and fast response. Here, the results obtained from an experiment performed using a 100-MeV proton beam are presented. Proton radiographs of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) samples of 50-mm thickness with spatial patterns in aluminum were taken. Their properties were studied, including reproduction of the dimensions, spatial resolution, and sensitivity to different materials. Structures of up to 2 mm are well resolved and the sensitivity of the system was enough to distinguish the thicknesses of 10 mm of aluminum or PMMA. The spatial resolution of the images was 0.3 line pairs per mm (MTF-10%). This constitutes the first step to validate the device as a proton radiography scanner.
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Bouhova-Thacker, E., Kostyukhin, V., Koffas, T., Liebig, W., Limper, M., Piacquadio, G. N., et al. (2010). Expected Performance of Vertex Reconstruction in the ATLAS Experiment at the LHC. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 57(2), 760–767.
Abstract: In the harsh environment of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (design luminosity of 10(34) cm(-2) s(-1)) efficient reconstruction of vertices is crucial for many physics analyses. Described in this paper is the expected performance of the vertex reconstruction used in the ATLAS experiment. The algorithms for the reconstruction of primary and secondary vertices as well as for finding photon conversions and vertex reconstruction in jets are described. The implementation of vertex algorithms which follows a very modular design based on object-oriented C++ is presented. A user-friendly concept allows event reconstruction and physics analyses to compare and optimize their choice among different vertex reconstruction strategies. The performance of implemented algorithms has been studied on a variety of Monte Carlo samples and results are presented.
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Boronat, M., Marinas, C., Frey, A., Garcia, I., Schwenker, B., Vos, M., et al. (2015). Physical Limitations to the Spatial Resolution of Solid-State Detectors. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 62(1), 381–386.
Abstract: In this paper we explore the effect of delta-ray emission and fluctuations in the signal deposition on the detection of charged particles in silicon-based detectors. We show that these two effects ultimately limit the resolution that can be achieved by interpolation of the signal in finely segmented position-sensitive solid-state devices.
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