Physicians rely on nuclear medicine scans, like SPECT scans, to watch the heart pump, track blood flow and detect diseases hidden deep inside the body. But today’s scanners depend on expensive detectors that are difficult to make.
Now, scientists led by Northwestern University and Soochow University in China have built the first perovskite-based detector that can capture individual gamma rays for SPECT imaging with record-breaking precision. The new tool could make common types of nuclear medicine imaging sharper, faster, cheaper and safer.
For patients, that could mean shorter scan times, clearer results and lower doses of radiation.
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.
“Perovskites are a family of crystals best known for transforming the field of solar energy,” said Northwestern’s Mercouri Kanatzidis, the study’s senior author. “Now, they are poised to do the same for nuclear medicine. This is the first clear proof that perovskite detectors can produce the kind of sharp, reliable images that doctors need to provide the best care for their patients.”
“Our approach not only improves the performance of detectors but also could lower costs,” said co-corresponding author Yihui He, a professor at Soochow University. “That means more hospitals and clinics eventually could have access to the best imaging technologies.”
Kanatzidis is a Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. Yihui He is a former postdoctoral fellow from Kanatzidis’ laboratory.
Nuclear medicine, like SPECT (single-photon emission computing tomography) imaging, works like an invisible camera. Physicians implant a tiny, safe, short-lived radiotracer in a specific part of a patient’s body. The tracer emits gamma rays, which pass outward through tissues and eventually hit a detector outside of the body. Each gamma ray is like a pixel of light. After collecting millions of these pixels, computers can construct a 3D image of working organs.
An approach that means more hospitals and clinics eventually could have access to the best imaging technologies.
Today’s detectors, which are either made from cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) or sodium iodide (NaI), have several disadvantages. CZT detectors are incredibly expensive, sometimes reaching into the price range of hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for a whole camera. Because CZT crystals are brittle and prone to cracking, these detectors also are difficult to manufacture. While cheaper than CZT detectors, NaI detectors are bulky and produce blurrier images — like taking a photo through a foggy window.
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