Patent ID: 8489177

Claim:
A fiducial marker in combination with a gamma detector for determining the location of a region-of-interest in a stationary object to be imaged comprising: a gamma guided positioning system located adjacent to and held rigidly in place on one side of said object to be imaged; a stereotactic imaging system mounted on an opposite side of said object to be imaged; said gamma guided positioning system including a grid localization plate having a plurality of grid openings therein; a gamma emitting fiducial source rigidly mounted in said gamma guided positioning system such that said fiducial source and said region-of-interest can be imaged simultaneously with said stereotactic imaging system; said stereotactic imaging system including a gamma camera having a gamma camera crystal and two oppositely viewing slant-hole collimators having parallel slant holes, wherein the collimators are coplanar to each other, configured to be positionable in a first image position and a second image position, and rigidly joined end to end thereby enabling said stereotactic imaging system to provide simultaneous views of a mutual overlap volume within said object; an algorithm for correlating the location of said gamma guided positioning system with said gamma camera and providing the location of said region-of-interest; said oppositely viewing slant-hole collimators including a left side slant-hole collimator viewing at a 20 degree angle to the right and a right side slant-hole collimator viewing at a 20 degree angle to the left; an arrangement for sliding said slant-hole collimators with respect to and in close proximity to said stationary object between the first image position and the second image position; said fiducial source including a radioactive substance having a specific activity of no less than 1 microcurie and no greater than 25 microcurie; and said fiducial source enabling accurate manipulation of said positioning system to support and guide diagnostic and surgical equipment to said region-of-interest.