Calorimetry in medical applications: Single-photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), two nuclear medicine imaging modalities broadly used in clinics and research, share many common instrumentation, detector, and electronics technology platforms with calorimetry in high-energy physics, astronomy, and other physics sciences. Historically, advances made in calorimetry had played major roles in the development of novel approaches and critical technologies essential to the evolution of PET and SPECT. There have also been examples in which PET/SPECT developments had led to new techniques in calorimetry for other application areas. In recent years, several innovations have propelled advances in both calorimetry in general and PET/SPECT in particular. Examples include time-of-flight (TOF) measurements, silicon photomultipliers; (SiPMs), etc.