# High spatial resolution dedicated head and neck PET system based on cadmium zinc telluride detectors

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ · 2021 · $497,901

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Current head and neck cancer diagnosis and treatment planning suffers from poor spatial
resolution of whole-body positron emission tomography (WB-PET) scans. In the neck, where
tissue layers are thin, the spatial resolution of WB-PET (4-6 mm) is not sufficient to evaluate
small lymph nodes (<5 mm), establish how far the tumor has invaded locally, and guide the
decision to resect a tumor rather than irradiate and deliver chemotherapy. This proposal,
responsive to PAR-18-009, “Academic-Industrial Partnerships to Translate and Validate in vivo
Cancer Imaging Systems,” seeks to address this problem by translating high resolution radiation
detection technology to head and neck imaging. The project research team consists of
researchers from the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and eV Products Inc., a world leader in
semiconductors for radiation detection. To achieve its goal, this research will pursue the design,
development, optimization, characterization, and validation of a dedicated head and neck PET
scanner. The proposed system will be the first head and neck scanner to exhibit features as
small as 1 mm with high photon sensitivity, enabled by the use of high energy and spatial
resolution properties of cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) crystals. This system will be integrated into
a transportable stage and is designed to not interfere with the conventional workflow of the WB-
PET scan procedure, and has the additional attraction of being used for dynamic PET studies.
We expect that this dedicated head and neck PET imaging system will deliver the following new
capabilities: i) detection and evaluation of small lymph nodes, ii) improved treatment planning
and determining the extent of the tumor growth, and iii) improved confidence in differentiating
post-treatment change from tumor recurrence. The system will consist of two panels and have
an adjustment for panel-to-panel separation distance. Each panel contains 150, 4x4x0.5 cm3
cross-strip CZT crystals covering a 20x15 cm2 panel area. The crystals will be mounted in an
edge-on configuration for increased photon detection efficiency. A novel event recovery scheme
based on the 3D position sensitive cross-strip crystals will be developed to recover multiple
interaction photon events, reject random events, and significantly increase the photon sensitivity
of the system. In the final year of the project, a study consisting of 20 patients will be conducted
to evaluate the performance of the developed prototype and validate the potential benefits.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10198923
- **Project number:** 5R01EB028091-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ
- **Principal Investigator:** Shiva Abbaszadeh
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $497,901
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-30 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10198923

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10198923, High spatial resolution dedicated head and neck PET system based on cadmium zinc telluride detectors (5R01EB028091-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10198923. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*