The biomedical engineering department at the University of California, Davis, has developed a PET/MRI scanner. The system is designed to study laboratory mice for cancer research, according to Simon Cherry, professor and chair of biomedical engineering.
Because photomultiplier tubes used in conventional PET machines are sensitive to MRI's magnetic fields, researchers used a new technology, a silicon avalanche photodiode detector, in their machine. By doing so, they said were able to show that the scanner could simultaneously acquire accurate PET and MRI images from test objects and mice.
Details of the system are published online by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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