Method and apparatus for improved estimation of characteristics of pulses detected by a nuclear camera

摘要

A nuclear medicine imaging device includes a radiation camera (10) including a plurality of photo multiplier tubes (28). Each photo multiplier tube (28) is configured with an analog to digital converter (30) which converts a detected scintillation event (50) to sampled digital values. A storage device (66) is preloaded with an estimator function which can be derived from a calibration scintillation events. A processor (14) in communication with both the camera (10) and the storage device (66), detects an event and combines the digital values which are sampled together to arrive at a total area or energy of the scintillation event. Alternately, if a second pulse (52) is detected before the first scintillation event (50) has ended, the area combining (A1) of the first event is stopped and a pulse tail is estimated (A2) from the estimator functions stored. This estimated tail is then added to the combined data values taken until the time of pile-up. Additionally, the estimated tail (A2) is subtracted from the combined data values for the second scintillation event (52).