PET-Compton camera integration: towards a compact alternative to PET-SPECT

The combination of PET and SPECT nuclear imaging techniques offers advantages, such as the improvement of cancer diagnosis. However, it is difficult to integrate PET and SPECT into one compact imaging system, due to the presence of the SPECT collimator. Integration of PET and Compton cameras (CC) does not present this problem, and can be advantageous for high gammaray energy or multi-energy radionuclides. In this work, simulations of a PET-CC system are driven for different radionuclide distributions (89Zr, 124I, 18F + 95Tc). PET and CC images of the gamma-ray emission distributions are successfully obtained, as well as joint PET-CC images, thus showing the potential of this technology to become a compact alternative to PET-SPECT systems.