Performance evaluation of MMP-II:A second-generation small animal PET

We have completed construction of a second-generation, single-plane small animal PET instrument based on LSO detectors. The second-generation design addresses some of the limitations in the first-generation. The purpose of the work reported here was to characterize the physical performance of this instrument. Results of the performance measurements include: Spatial resolution=1.25 mm at field center and 1.5 mm at 2 cm radius; point source sensitivity=56 cps/uCi,; scatter fractions of 0.019 and 0.056 in 3.8 and 6 cm diameter cylinders respectively; linearity of reconstructed signal within 5% up to 100 uCi/cc and acceptable dead-time performance up to 25 k true cps. Examples of phantom and animal images are also presented.