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The impact of iterative reconstruction protocol, signal-to-background ratio and background activity on measurement of PET spatial resolution

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Abstract

Objectives

The present study aims to assess the impact of acquisition time, different iterative reconstruction protocols as well as image context (including contrast levels and background activities) on the measured spatial resolution in PET images.

Methods

Discovery 690 PET/CT scanner was used to quantify spatial resolutions in terms of full width half maximum (FWHM) as derived (i) directly from capillary tubes embedded in air and (ii) indirectly from 10 mm-diameter sphere of the NEMA phantom. Different signal-to-background ratios (SBRs), background activity levels and acquisition times were applied. The emission data were reconstructed using iterative reconstruction protocols. Various combinations of iterations and subsets (it × sub) were evaluated.

Results

For capillary tubes, improved FWHM values were obtained for higher it × sub, with improved performance for PSF algorithms relative to non-PSF algorithms. For the NEMA phantom, by increasing acquisition times from 1 to 5 min, intrinsic FWHM for reconstructions with it × sub 32 (54) was improved by 15.3% (13.2%), 15.1% (13.8%), 14.5% (12.8%) and 13.7% (12.7%) for OSEM, OSEM + PSF, OSEM + TOF and OSEM + PSF + TOF, respectively. Furthermore, for all reconstruction protocols, the FWHM improved with more impact for higher it × sub.

Conclusion

Our results indicate that PET spatial resolution is greatly affected by SBR, background activity and the choice of the reconstruction protocols.

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Funding

This work was supported under grant number 33381, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, as well as Masih Daneshvari Hospital and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Sahar Rezaei & Mohammad Reza Ay

  2. Research Center for Molecular and Cellular Imaging (RCMCI), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Sahar Rezaei, Saeed Sarkar & Mohammad Reza Ay

  3. Chronic Respiratory Diseases Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, 19569-44413, Tehran, Iran

    Pardis Ghafarian & Mehrdad Bakhshayesh-Karam

  4. PET/CT and Cyclotron Center, Masih Daneshvari Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Pardis Ghafarian & Mehrdad Bakhshayesh-Karam

  5. Department of Functional Imaging, BC Cancer, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Carlos F. Uribe

  6. Departments of Radiology and Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Arman Rahmim

  7. Department of Integrative Oncology, BC Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, Canada

    Arman Rahmim

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  1. Sahar Rezaei
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Correspondence to Pardis Ghafarian.

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Rezaei, S., Ghafarian, P., Bakhshayesh-Karam, M. et al. The impact of iterative reconstruction protocol, signal-to-background ratio and background activity on measurement of PET spatial resolution. Jpn J Radiol 38, 231–239 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-019-00914-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-019-00914-3

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