After successful completion of the course, students are able to explain physical fundamentals of functional imaging technology, to describe the most important methods of radiation measurements, to determine the functionality and application of the gamma camera as well as to explicate tomography in nuclear medicine and PET.
The lecture will be organised in five parts and should serve as an introduction to the most important aspects of imaging in nuclear medicine.
The following topics will be discussed in detail:
Part 1: Basic physics
- Brief introduction to nuclear physics
- Introduction to radionuclide production
- Interaction of radiation (photons) with matter
Part 2: Radiation measurement
- Overview of commonly used detectors
- Pulse-height spectroscopy
- Basic principle of imaging in nuclear medicine
Part 3: The gamma camera
- Principle and function of a gamma camera
- Properties of a gamma camera
Part 4: Tomography in nuclear medicine
- Introduction to single photon emission computed tomography - SPECT
- Introduction to image reconstruction methods in nuclear medicine (principle of back projection and iterative reconstruction)
Part 5: Positron emission tomography - PET
- Introduction to the physics of PET
- Time-of-flight PET/CT (TOF-PET/CT)
- Data organisation in PET (sinogram etc.)
- Overview of systems commercially available (TOF-PET/CT, PET/NMR)
Dear Colleagues,
The handouts will be available for registered students only.
Best regards,
Albert Hirtl