Search

GATE (Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission) is a Monte Carlo simulation platform for nuclear medicine imaging, based on the Geant4 toolkit package. In order to improve data analysis and image quantification, a new simulator for the ECAT EXACT HR+ scanner was originally developed with GATE. in this study, we validate GATE simulations for positron emission topography (PET) imaging systems: a good agreement is obtained between simulated and actual experimental results. Additional GATE applications are also presented in the paper: an implementation of the voxelized Hoffman phantom and an example of a MRI/PET coupling system for improving image resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GATE, the Geant4 application for tomographic emission, is a simulation platform developed for PET and SPECT. It combines a powerful simulation core, the Geant4 toolkit, with newly developed software components dedicated to nuclear medicine. In particular, it models the passing of time during real acquisitions, allowing it to handle dynamic systems such as decaying source distributions or moving detectors. We present several series of results that illustrate the possibilities of this new platform. The simulation of decaying sources is illustrated on a dual-isotope acquisition with multiple time-frames. Count rate curves taking into account random coincidences and dead-time are shown for a dual-crystal setup and for a small-animal PET scanner configuration. Simulated resolution curves and reconstructed images are shown for rotating PET scanners. Lastly, we present first comparisons of simulated point-spread functions and spectra with experimental results obtained from a small-animal gamma camera prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]