What is a gamma camera used for?

What is a gamma camera used for?

The gamma camera, also called ascintillation camera orAnger camera, is an imaging device used to image gamma radiation–emitting radioisotopes. This technique is known as scintigraphy and is used to image and analyze the distribution of gamma-emitting radionuclides medically introduced into the human body.

What is a collimator in a gamma camera?

The collimator is made of perforated or folded lead and is interposed between the patient and the scintillation crystal. It allows the gamma camera to localize accurately the radionuclide in the patient’s body.

What are the types of collimators?

There are 5 basic collimator designs to channel photons of different energies, to magnify or minify images, and to select between imaging quality and imaging speed.

  • Parallel hole collimator.
  • Slanthole collimators.
  • Converging and Diverging Collimators.
  • Fanbeam collimators.
  • Pinhole collimators.

What is a gamma camera machine?

Gamma cameras (also called scintillation cameras or Anger cameras) are the predominant nuclear medicine imaging machine currently in use. They permit the acquisition of planar images. They are also central to single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).

Is a gamma camera safe?

The procedure is safe and neither the dose of the drug with the radiation nor the camera cause any kind of discomfort. There have never been any complications associated with the procedure.

Who invented gamma camera?

Hal AngerGamma camera / Inventor
Gamma camera: It was invented and constructed by H. Anger in 1957, improvements being made from 1958 to 1963. Gamma cameras are being commercially produced and sold since 1962; about ten years later they become widely used, and soon they pushed out the scanner from visual diagnostics.

What are collimators used for?

collimator, device for changing the diverging light or other radiation from a point source into a parallel beam. This collimation of the light is required to make specialized measurements in spectroscopy and in geometric and physical optics.

Why does a gamma camera need a collimator?

A collimator is the first processing layer of a gamma camera to encounter photons from radioactive source. It restricts the rays from the source so that each point in the image corresponds to a unique point in the source.

Why are collimators made of lead?

Lead is the most commonly used material for collimators, because of it’s high density. Besides this, lead is the least expensive material for collimator purposes. Nuclear Shields can provice Microcast and Microlinear collimators for low, medium or high energy imaging.

Why does spect need collimator?

In order to reconstruct the original location of the source, information about the incident angle of the detected photons on the detector is needed. Therefore, a collimator, which maps lines of response to particular detector positions, is used. In most clinical systems [e.g., Fig.

What is the difference between gamma camera and SPECT?

Overview. SPECT (Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography) is a diagnostic imaging technique used in nuclear medicine which studies PHYSIOLOGICAL (FUNCTIONAL) processes in the body. Gamma cameras are used to construct an image of the distribution of radiopharmaceuticals spread out in the body of a patient.

What are gamma cameras made of?

In general, the gamma camera consists of a collimator, a scintillation crystal, and photomultiplier tubes (PMTs).

What is a gamma collimator and how does it work?

The collimator of a Gamma camera used in nuclear medicine differs in structure and function to the beam collimators used in general radiography. They typically consist of a lead disc drilled with tens of thousands of closely packed holes, separated from each other by septa. Each hole only accepts Gamma rays to travel through a narrow channel.

What is a collimator in optics?

In X-ray optics, gamma ray optics, and neutron optics, a collimator is a device that filters a stream of rays so that only those traveling parallel to a specified direction are allowed through.

What is an X-ray collimator used for?

X-ray, gamma ray, and neutron collimators Collimators used to record gamma rays and neutrons from a nuclear test. In X-ray optics, gamma ray optics, and neutron optics, a collimator is a device that filters a stream of rays so that only those traveling parallel to a specified direction are allowed through.

What is a gamma camera?

Gamma camera. Diagrammatic cross section of a gamma camera detector. Details of the cross section of a gamma camera. A gamma camera consists of one or more flat crystal planes (or detectors) optically coupled to an array of photomultiplier tubes in an assembly known as a “head”, mounted on a gantry.