Practical evaluation of an analytical attenuation correction method for a non-uniform attenuator

This paper evaluates an analytical attenuation correction method for a non-uniform attenuator in single photon emission CT. For the analytical attenuation correction method we implemented Kunyansky´s formulation. The performance of this method was compared with that of the OS-EM method with a simulation phantom and an experiment phantom. The results of simulation showed that the analytical method could correct the effect of attenuation at the region where the attenuation coefficients were large. The results of experiments showed that the analytical method was superior to the iterative method and the reduction of scattered photons was very important for quantitative image reconstruction in the clinical setting.