PET Imaging Physics and Instrumentation

This article deals with how PET images are formed, and the equipment needed to form them. The reader will be introduced to the different types of PET system geometries, and the advantages and disadvantages of each system. Emission scans are compared and contrasted to transmission scans, and the concept of attenuation correction is introduced. The issues pertaining to image quality are discussed, in order to understand what makes a good PET image, and identify some of the causes of poor quality PET images. Different types of PET image presentation (slice-by-slice and whole body scans) are discussed at the end of the chapter.