The Inveon PET scanner is a third generation PET imaging system that incorporates several key technical features and advancements that deliver exceptional image quality and quantitative accuracy.

LSO Detector Material
The performance of a PET scanner depends greatly upon the physical and scintillation properties of the crystal detector material. LSO offers the best combination of properties of any PET scintillator used today— fast scintillation decay time, high light output, and effective atomic number.

Detector Architecture
The detector design in Inveon includes an innovative high efficiency light guide that delivers more photons to the photomultiplier tube, thereby improving energy and timing resolution. The detector also features a large 20 x 20 crystal array that increases the scanners axial field of view (FOV) and improves system sensitivity. With minimal gap between crystal elements and a 92% packing fraction, the net result is a PET system with exceptional spatial resolution and sensitivity.

Acquisition System Technology
The new Inveon data processing architecture improves PET count rate performance, energy resolution, and timing resolution. Count rate performance is improved through a store and forward coincidence processing technique that virtually eliminates the electronic deadtime associated with traditional multiplexing architectures. Improved energy resolution using high speed analog-to-digital converters and improved timing resolution through the use of 312 ps time bins, results in a PET system with exceedingly high singles and coincidence data rates, as well as, excellent random and scattered event rejection.

Attenuation Correction
With an internally mounted and self-shielded rotating ⁵⁷Co transmission source, Inveon provides fast, accurate attenuation scans. This high speed point source mechanism takes advantage of the lower energy of ⁵⁷Co. With an emission energy of 122 keV, ⁵⁷Co transmission scans provide superior contrast and more accurate attenuation maps than scans acquired with ⁶⁸Ge (511 keV) or ¹³⁷Cs (662 keV). ⁵⁷Co transmission scans can also be reconstructed for anatomic localization of the PET signal.