Investigation of acquisition and image reconstruction parameters for rotating multi-segment slant-hole SPECT

SPECT using a rotating multi-segment slant-hole (RMSSH) collimator provides a superior alternative for imaging the breast and the heart comparing to conventional SPECT. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of the number of camera positions and the number of collimator rotation stops at each camera position on RMSSH SPECT reconstruction image quality, using both Monte-Carlo simulation and physical phantom experiments. Our results demonstrate the importance of sufficient camera positions for complete angle data acquisition and accurate 3D RMSSH SPECT image reconstruction; and for the same total acquisition time, tradeoff exists between the number of collimator rotation stops and the amount of acquisition time at each rotation stop. We conclude that complete angle data acquisition is crucial for accurate 3D RMSSH SPECT image reconstructions, but using inadequate number of camera positions may also result in usable diagnostic information in shorter acquisition time. An optimal trade-off between image resolution, noise and image artifacts is needed to determine the number of collimator rotation stops at each camera position.