Spatial resolution of human RPC-PET system

In this work, the spatial resolution of a human wide axial field of view RPC-PET system was studied. It was verified that physical processes involving the detection of 511keV photons do not degrade the spatial resolution, compared with that attainable with systems based on inorganic scintillation crystals coupled to photomultiplier tubes. Considering the photon acollinearity effect, a detector depth-of-interaction resolution of 3.44mm, and detector readout binnings of 1.0 and 2.0mm, the spatial resolutions computed as the mean of full width at half maximum of point spread functions in three orthogonal directions (X, Y, and Z) were 1.4±0.0 and 2.1±0.1mm, respectively. The corresponding mean spatial resolutions computed as the full width at tenth maximum were 3.9±0.4 and 4.8±0.3mm, respectively.