Image Improvements in Positron-Emission Tomography Due to Measuring Differential Time-of-Flight and Using Maximum-Likelihood Estimation

D. G. Politte

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Two distinctly different methods have been used to improve images produced in positron-emission tomography. The first method is to measure the differential time of flight of the photon pairs which are detected; the second is to use an iterative algorithm which computes maximum-likelihood estimates of radioactivity distributions. We have quantified the performance of algorithms which include neither, one or the other, or both methods of improvement by performing a repetitive simulation experiment using the Hoffman brain phantom as the underlying distribution of radioactivity. Our simulations show that all of the algorithms yield unbiased estimates of the desired image. The algorithm which computes maximum-likelihood estimates using time-of-flight information reconstructs images with the lowest variance. The algorithm which uses neither of these methods (filtered backprojection) reconstructs images with the highest variance.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)737-742
Number of pages6
JournalIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
Volume37
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1990

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