Patent ID: 6593576
Filing Date: 2003-07-15
Classification: A61B,G01T

Abstract:
A method of diagnostic imaging comprising:a) introducing a radioactive isotope into a subject located in an imaging region; b) continuously rotating a solid state detector array within a detector head about an axis perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the subject while detecting photon emissions indicative of nuclear decay to generate a plurality of planar projections of an examination region each at a plurality of angular orientations; c) rotating the detector head around the longitudinal axis of the subject while continuing the continuous rotating and detecting of step (b); d) binning detected radiation events detected by the detector array into bins in accordance with a distance of the detectors from the detector axis, the bins corresponding to arc segments of the rotation of the detector array around the detector axis, with the bins corresponding to arc segments of different size in accordance with the distance from the detector axis; and, e) reconstructing the detected photon emissions into an image representation of the subject in the imaging region.