SPECT Imaging With Resolution Recovery

Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is a method of choice for imaging spatial distributions of radioisotopes. Applications of this method are found in medicine, biomedical research and nuclear industry. This paper deals with improving spatial resolution in SPECT by applying correction for the point-spread function (PSF) in the reconstruction algorithm and optimizing the collimator. Several approaches are considered: the use of a depth-dependent PSF model for a parallel-beam collimator derived from experimental data, the extension of this model to a fan-beam collimator, a triangular approximation of the PSF for reconstruction acceleration, and a method for optimal fan-beam collimator design. An unmatched projector/backprojector ordered subsets expectation maximization (OSEM) algorithm is used for image reconstruction. Experimental results with simulated and physical phantom data of a micro-SPECT system show a significant improvement of spatial resolution with the proposed methods.