PET image reconstruction with a system matrix containing point spread function derived from single photon incidence response

A point spread function(PSF)for the blurring component in positron emission tomography(PET)is studied.The PSF matrix is derived from the single photon incidence response function.A statistical iterative reconstruction(IR)method based on the system matrix containing the PSF is developed.More specifically,the gamma photon incidence upon a crystal array is simulated by Monte Carlo(MC)simulation,and then the single photon incidence response functions are calculated.Subsequently,the single photon incidence response functions are used to compute the coincidence blurring factor according to the physical process of PET coincidence detection.Through weighting the ordinary system matrix response by the coincidence blurring factors,the IR system matrix containing the PSF is finally established.By using this system matrix,the image is reconstructed by an ordered subset expectation maximization(OSEM)algorithm.The experimental results show that the proposed system matrix can substantially improve the image radial resolution,contrast,and noise property.Furthermore,the simulated single gamma-ray incidence response function depends only on the crystal configuration,so the method could be extended to any PET scanner with the same detector crystal configuration.     

A region segmentation based algorithm for building a crystal position lookup table in a scintillation detector

In a scintillation detector, scintillation crystals are typically made into a 2-dimensional modular array.The location of incident gamma-ray needs be calibrated due to spatial response nonlinearity. Generally, position histograms—the characteristic flood response of scintillation detectors—are used for position calibration. In this paper, a position calibration method based on a crystal position lookup table which maps the inaccurate location calculated by Anger logic to the exact hitting crystal position has been proposed. Firstly, the position histogram is preprocessed, such as noise reduction and image enhancement. Then the processed position histogram is segmented into disconnected regions, and crystal marking points are labeled by finding the centroids of regions. Finally, crystal boundaries are determined and the crystal position lookup table is generated. The scheme is evaluated by the whole-body positron emission tomography(PET) scanner and breast dedicated single photon emission computed tomography scanner developed by the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The results demonstrate that the algorithm is accurate, efficient, robust and applicable to any configurations of scintillation detector.