TY - GEN
T1 - Time-of-flight precision and PET image accuracy
AU - Kolthammer, Jeffrey A.
AU - Tang, Jing
AU - Perkins, Amy E.
AU - Muzic, Raymond F.
PY - 2010/12/1
Y1 - 2010/12/1
N2 - Time of flight information is used in PET to improve image quality. However, the nature of the improvement and its relationship with the precision of the time of flight measurement remains to be well-characterized, particularly in the framework of iterative reconstruction. In this work, hot-spheres phantoms are imaged, and the list data are then degraded to simulate systems with poorer timing resolution. More precise of flight is found to lead to images with higher sphere contrast and lower background noise at each iteration, and convergent sphere contrast with fewer iterations. Combining these effects, the background noise at which each sphere reaches 90% of its final contrast is lower with improved timing resolution, with the amount of noise reduction underestimated by a conventional proportionality to the timing resolution.
AB - Time of flight information is used in PET to improve image quality. However, the nature of the improvement and its relationship with the precision of the time of flight measurement remains to be well-characterized, particularly in the framework of iterative reconstruction. In this work, hot-spheres phantoms are imaged, and the list data are then degraded to simulate systems with poorer timing resolution. More precise of flight is found to lead to images with higher sphere contrast and lower background noise at each iteration, and convergent sphere contrast with fewer iterations. Combining these effects, the background noise at which each sphere reaches 90% of its final contrast is lower with improved timing resolution, with the amount of noise reduction underestimated by a conventional proportionality to the timing resolution.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79960313938&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=79960313938&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/NSSMIC.2010.5874495
DO - 10.1109/NSSMIC.2010.5874495
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:79960313938
SN - 9781424491063
T3 - IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record
SP - 3657
EP - 3660
BT - IEEE Nuclear Science Symposuim and Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2010
T2 - 2010 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference, NSS/MIC 2010 and 17th International Workshop on Room-Temperature Semiconductor X-ray and Gamma-ray Detectors, RTSD 2010
Y2 - 30 October 2010 through 6 November 2010
ER -