Novel Detector Technologies for Medical Applications at the Example of Tumor Detection in BNCT

The next evolutionary step in medical imaging and radiation therapy is to employ novel detector technologies capable of pho- ton counting operations. These detectors allow to acquire the spectrum of the radiation for each pixel. Currently used energy integrating detectors do not allow this. Two types of detector materials capable of photon counting operation are discussed in this work. With the result that the detector technology based on CdTe and CdZnTe is more matured than GaAs. The spectral in- formation of photon counting detectors can be used for numer- ous applications and diagnostic improvements. A distinct ex- ample is presented for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). This therapy lacks an accurate real time method to determine the 10B concentration within the patient. Previous approaches failed because of the low signal to noise ratio of the used sig- nal. A method has been proposed to improve this therapy by employing CdTe based photon counting detectors. These de- tectors allow detection of a secondary signal with a higher sig- nal to noise ratio. Additionally, efforts to produce CdTe based photon counting detector arrays, for medical applications, are described.