Correction for emission contamination in transmission scans for the high resolution research tomograph

Author

De Jong, Hugo W A M ; Boellaard, Ronald ; Lenox, Mark ; Michel, Christiaan ; Lammertsma, Adriaan A.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Nucl. Med. & PET Res., VU Univ. Med. Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Volume

51

Issue

3

fYear

2004

fDate

6/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

673

Lastpage

676

Abstract

The High Resolution Research Tomograph (HRRT) PET scanner is equipped with a moving Cs-137 transmission point source emitting 662 keV single photons. During post-injection transmission imaging 511 keV emission photons can be detected in the transmission window leading to gross underestimation of the reconstructed μ-value. Using cylindrical phantoms, methods to compensate for this emission contamination (EC) were investigated including histogram-based scaling and segmentation, while varying transmission window settings were used. Furthermore, the effects of subtracting a uniform or nonuniform EC estimation prior to transmission reconstruction were quantified. In conclusion, EC during HRRT transmission scans can lead to gross underestimation of μ-values, and the most accurate way to compensate for this is to combine nonuniform EC subtraction with transmission image segmentation.

Keywords

image reconstruction; image segmentation; medical image processing; phantoms; positron emission tomography; PET scanner; correction method; cylindrical phantom; high resolution research tomograph; histogram-based scaling; image reconstruction; moving Cs-137 transmission point source; nonuniform emission contamination estimation; post-injection transmission imaging; reconstructed μ-value; single photon emission detection; transmission image segmentation; transmission scans; transmission window; uniform emission contamination estimation; Attenuation; Contamination; Detectors; Head; High-resolution imaging; Image reconstruction; Image resolution; Image segmentation; Imaging phantoms; Positron emission tomography; Emission contamination; HRRT; High Resolution Research Tomograph; PET; image reconstruction; transmission;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2004.829592

Filename

1310581