GATE : a simulation toolkit for PET and SPECT

S. Jan , G. Santin , D. Strul , S. Staelens , K. Assie , D. Autret , S. Avner (1) , R. Barbier , M. Bardies , P.M. Bloomfield , D. Brasse (1) , Vincent Breton (2) , P. Bruyndonckx , I. Buvat , A.F. Chatziioannou , Y. Choi , Y.H. Chung , C. Comtat , D. Donnarieix , L. Ferrer , S.J. Glick , C.J. Groiselle , D. Guez , P.-F. Honore , S. Kerhoas-Cavata , A.S. Kirov , V. Kohli , M. Koole , M. Krieguer , D.J. van Der Laan , F. Lamare , G. Largeron (3) , C. Lartizien , M.C. Maas , L. Maigne (2) , F. Mayet (4) , F. Melot (4) , C. Merheb , E. Pennacchio , J. Perez , U. Pietrzyk , F.R. Rannou , M. Rey , D.R. Schaart , C.R. Schmidtlein , L. Simon , T.Y. Song , J.-M. Vieira , D. Visvikis , R. van de Walle , E. Wieers , Delphine Lazaro (2) , C. Morel

1 IReS - Institut de Recherches Subatomiques
2 LPC - Laboratoire de Physique Corpusculaire - Clermont-Ferrand
3 IPNL - Institut de Physique Nucléaire de Lyon
4 LPSC - Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie

Monte Carlo simulation is an essential tool in emission tomography that can assist in the design of new medical imaging devices, the optimization of acquisition protocols, and the development or assessment of image reconstruction algorithms and correction techniques. GATE, the Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission, encapsulates the Geant4 libraries to achieve a modular, versatile, scripted simulation toolkit adapted to the field of nuclear medicine. In particular, GATE allows the description of time-dependent phenomena such as source or detector movement, and source decay kinetics. This feature makes it possible to simulate time curves under realistic acquisition conditions and to test dynamic reconstruction algorithms. A public release of GATE licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License can be downloaded at the address this http URL

Domaines: Biophysique [physics.bio-ph]

S. Jan, G. Santin, D. Strul, S. Staelens, K. Assie, et al.. GATE : a simulation toolkit for PET and SPECT. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 2004, 49, pp.4543-4561. ⟨10.1088/0031-9155/49/19/007⟩. ⟨in2p3-00021834⟩