Del Guerra A, Belcari N
Department of Physics, University of Pisa and INFN, Section of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
Q J Nucl Med. 2002 Mar;46(1):35-47.
Nowadays, a growing number of research groups shows a great interest for the application of PET and SPECT techniques to the development of new drugs. Preliminary studies on small animals require high performance dedicated scanners with a higher spatial resolution and sensitivity than those of clinical systems. In this paper the potential applications of such innovative instruments are shown together with a brief review of the dedicated PET and SPECT tomographs developed worldwide. Most of the scanners have been built as research prototypes. Only two are commercially available: micro-PET(R), designed and developed at UCLA, Los Angeles as a research prototype, and now produced and distributed by Concorde Microsystems Inc. (USA) and HIDAC PET produced by Oxford Positron Systems Ltd. (UK). Also in Italy, a high performance tomograph, YAP-(S) PET able to perform both PET and SPECT studies, has been developed at the University of Ferrara. The technical characteristics and performance of this scanner are described. Tomographs with combined imaging techniques, such as PET/CT or SPECT/CT, are now under study in various international research centers. The advantages of this new generation of animal scanners will be briefly outlined.
如今，越来越多的研究团队对将正电子发射断层扫描（PET）和单光子发射计算机断层扫描（SPECT）技术应用于新药研发表现出浓厚兴趣。对小动物的初步研究需要高性能的专用扫描仪，其空间分辨率和灵敏度要高于临床系统。本文展示了此类创新仪器的潜在应用，并简要回顾了全球范围内研发的专用PET和SPECT断层扫描仪。大多数扫描仪都是作为研究原型制造的。只有两款是商业可用的：微PET（R），最初在洛杉矶的加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校设计和开发为研究原型，现在由协和微系统公司（美国）生产和销售；以及由牛津正电子系统有限公司（英国）生产的HIDAC PET。同样在意大利，费拉拉大学研发出了一款高性能断层扫描仪YAP-（S）PET，它能够同时进行PET和SPECT研究。文中描述了该扫描仪的技术特性和性能。具有PET/CT或SPECT/CT等联合成像技术的断层扫描仪目前正在各个国际研究中心进行研究。本文将简要概述新一代动物扫描仪的优势。
