Count rate performances of TTVO3: the CEA-LETI time-of-flight positron emission tomograph.

The authors present the count rate performance of the CEA-LETI TTVO3 time-of-flight positron emission tomography (PET) system using both physical measurements and H(2)(15)O bolus human myocardial studies. They also present a comparison between the counting statistics of H(2)(15)O brain studies performed on this machine and on the latest available high-resolution brain bismuth germanate (BGO) tomograph, the ECAT 953B/31. During the 80 mCi cerebral blood flow study, the count rate reached 100 K events/s, and the same experiment performed on a high-resolution BGO brain machine gave only a 30% increase in signal. These results demonstrate that TTVO3 is particularly suitable for H(2)(15)O flow studies.