3-D localization of gamma ray sources with coded apertures for medical applications

Abstract

Several small gamma cameras for radioguided surgery using CdTe or CdZnTe have parallel or pinhole collimators. Coded aperture imaging is a well-known method for gamma ray source directional identification, applied in astrophysics mainly. The increase in efficiency due to the substitution of the collimators by the coded masks renders the method attractive for gamma probes used in radioguided surgery. We have constructed and operationally verified a setup consisting of two CdTe gamma cameras with Modified Uniform Redundant Array (MURA) coded aperture masks of rank 7 and 19 and a video camera. The 3-D position of point-like radioactive sources is estimated via triangulation using decoded images acquired by the gamma cameras. We have also developed code for both fast and detailed simulations and we have verified the agreement between experimental results and simulations. In this paper we present a simulation study for the spatial localization of two point sources using coded aperture masks with rank 7 and 19.