Development of skin surface radiation detector system to monitor radioactivity in arterial blood along with positron emission tomography

A noninvasive blood radioactivity monitor system for positron emission tomography (PET) study has been developed. This system has dual plastic scintillators to detect positrons from the wrist artery. One is for monitoring the blood radioactivity in artery and tissue, and another is for monitoring only in tissue, in order to subtract background radiation from tissue. The authors carried out phantom experiments for evaluating basic characteristics of this monitor system. Clinical experiments using /sup 15/O-labeled water were also done to compare this system with a conventional invasive monitor. >