Comparison of circular and polygonal planar orbits for pinhole and slit-slat SPECT.

Analytic formulas and Monte Carlo simulation are used to calculate and compare the sensitivity of circular and polygonal orbits at different points in the Field of View (FoV) for both pinhole and slit-slat collimation. Results show that for a given slit-slat collimator an N-sided polygonal orbit tangent to the FoV generally provides average sensitivity lower than the tightest circular orbit consistent with the same aperture angle, but with better spatial resolution that can be traded for sensitivity for a constant-resolution comparison. This generally results in a slight advantage for the polygonal orbit. However, this advantage depends on the clearance that must be allowed between the orbit and the FoV and decreases quickly, vanishing when even a few millimeters of space are left, which in practice is necessary to accommodate mechanical constraints. For a pinhole collimator the advantage for the tangent polygonal orbit is more consistent, but similar conclusions are reached again when clearance is considered. A direct comparison at constant resolution between slit-slat and pinhole collimation in a single transverse plane is shown to be possible with parameters typical of small-animal imaging applications only for detectors with excellent intrinsic resolution; in this case, pinhole collimation is shown to be more sensitive in magnifying geometries, but reduced axial FoV and increased axial blurring should also be considered for a more complete comparison.