• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.5-11
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• 1999

This paper reviews recent major activities on instrumentation and methodology of PET. The performance of the PET instrumentation can be expressed by four physical characteristics, 1) spatial resolution, 2) coincidence resolving time, 3) energy resolution, and 4) detection efficiency. The physical and technical aspects of PET systems are briefly discussed along with these characteristics. Toward high resolution PET the recent trend has been to design multiple rings of densely packed detector arrays with scintillators. In order to satisfy the sampling requirement in reconstruction, continuous detector units has been developed. Iterative image reconstruction algorithms have received considerable attention for improvement of both the sampling requirement and image quality toward the stationary PET. Better resolving time improves the maximum true coincidence rate, which is also increased with more detectors placed in coincidence with each other. It suggests that volume PET is promising for enhancement of detection efficiency. The scattered coincidence event rate may be reduced by using detectors with better energy resolution. The use of interplane septa, however, takes over improvement of energy resolution in 2D PET. Energy resolution becomes an important factor for image quality under the condition of septa removal such as volume PET. Toward full utilization of emitting photons, 3D reconstruction incorporating oblique rays has been studied, and volume reconstruction algorithms have been developed. Practical volume PET systems impose heavy burden not only to detector sets and coincidence circuits, but also to computers in the memory requirements and the data processing. In conclusion, there have been many ingenious methods in development of PET instrumentation, which are based on unique capability of PET. They will be expected to overcome technical limitations, and to approach the fundamental limits.

• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.65-71
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• 2017

To assess the effects of filter and reconstruction of Cu-64 PET data on Siemens scanner, the various reconstruction algorithm with various filters were assessed in terms of spatial resolution, non-uniformity (NU), recovery coefficient (RC), and spillover ratio (SOR). Image reconstruction was performed using filtered backprojection (FBP), 2D ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM), 3D reprojection algorithm (3DRP), and maximum a posteriori algorithms (MAP). For the FBP reconstruction, ramp, butterworth, hamming, hanning, or parzen filters were used. Attenuation or scatter correction were performed to assess the effect of attenuation and scatter correction. Regarding spatial resolution, highest achievable volumetric resolution was $3.08mm^3$ at the center of FOV when MAP (${\beta}=0.1$) reconstruction method was used. SOR was below 4% for FBP when ramp, Hamming, Hanning, or Shepp-logan filter were used. The lowest NU (highest uniform) after attenuation & scatter correction was 5.39% when FBP (parzen filter) was used. Regarding RC, 0.9 < RC < 1.1 was obtained when OSEM (iteration: 10) was used when attenuation and scatter correction were applied. In this study, image quality of Cu-64 on Siemens Inveon PET was investigated. This data will helpful for the quantification of Cu-64 PET data.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.35-42
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• 2018

Purpose Standardized uptake value(SUV) has been widely used as a quantitative metric of uptake in PET/CT for diagnosis of malignant tumors and evaluation of tumor therapy response. However, the SUV depends on various factor including PET/CT scanner specifications and reconstruction parameter. The purpose of this study is to validate a EQ PET to evaluate SUV across different PET/CT systems. Materials and Methods First, NEMA IEC body phantom data were used to calculate the EQ filter for OSEM3D with PSF and TOF reconstruction from three different PET/CT systems in order to obtain EARL compliant recovery coefficients of each spheres. The Biograph true point 40 PET/CT images were reconstructed with a OSEM3D+PSF reconstruction, images of the Biograph mCT 40 and Biograph mCT 64 PET/CT scanners were reconstructed with a OSEM3D+PSF, OSEM3D+TOF, OSEM3D+PSF+TOF. Post reconstructions, the proprietary EQ filter was applied to the reconstruction data. Recovery coefficient can be estimated by ratio of measured to true activity concentration for spheres of different volume and coefficient variability(CV) value of RC for each sphere was compared. For clinical study, we compared SUVmax applying different reconstruction algorithms in FDG PET images of 61 patients with lung cancer using Biograph mCT 40 PET/CT scanner. Results For the phantom studied, the mean values of CV for OSEM3D, OSEM3D+PSF, OSEM3D+TOF and OSEM3D+PSF+TOF reconstructions were 0.05, 0.04, 0.04 and 0.03 respectively for RC. Application of the proprietary EQ filter, the mean values of CV for OSEM3D, OSEM3D+PSF, OSEM3D+TOF and OSEM3D+PSF+TOF reconstructions were 0.04, 0.03, 0.03 and 0.02 respectively for RC. Clinical study, there were no statistical significance of the difference applying EQ PET on SUVmax of 61 patients FDG PET image. (p=1.000) Conclusion This study indicates that CV values of RC in phantom were decreased after applying EQ PET for different PET/CT system and The EQ PET reduced reconstruction dependent variation in SUVs for 61 lung cancer patients, Therefore, EQ PET will be expected to provide accurate quantification when the patient is scanned on different PET/CT system.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.79-85
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to measure contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and signal to noise ratio (SNR) according to change of reconstruction from region of interest (ROI) in breast positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT), and to analyze the CNR and SNR statically. We examined images of breast PET-CT of 100 patients in a University-affiliated hospital, Seoul, Korea. Each patient's image of breast PET-CT were calculated by using ImageJ. Differences of CNR and SNR among four reconstruction algorithms were tested by SPSS Statistics21 ANOVA test for there was statistical significance (p<0.05). We have analysis socio-demographical variables, CNR and SNR according to reconstruction images, 95% confidence according to CNR and SNR of reconstruction and difference in a mean of CNR and SNR. SNR results, with the quality of distributions in the order of PSF_TOF, Iterative and Iterative-TOF, FBP-TOF. CNR, with the quality of distributions in the order of PSF_TOF, Iterative and Iterative-TOF, FBP-TOF. CNR and SNR of PET-CT reconstruction methods of the breast would be useful to evaluate breast diseases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2646-2651
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• 2021

A rectangular-shaped PET system with an adjustable gantry (AGPET) has been developed for imaging small animals. The AGPET system employs a new depth of interaction (DOI) method using a depth dependent reflector patterns and a new digital time pickoff method based on the pulse reconstruction method. To evaluate the performance of the AGPET, timing resolution, intrinsic spatial resolution and point source images were acquired. The timing resolution and intrinsic spatial resolution were measured using two detector modules and Na-22 gamma source. The PET images were acquired in two field of view (FOV) sizes, 30 mm and 90 mm, to demonstrate the characteristic of the AGPET. As a result of in the experiment results, the timing resolution was 0.9 ns using the pulse reconstruction method based on the bi-exponential model. The intrinsic spatial resolution was an average of 1.7 mm and the spatial resolution of PET images after DOI correction was 2.08 mm and 2.25 mm at the centers of 30 mm and 90 mm FOV, respectively. The results show that the proposed AGPET system provided higher sensitivity and resolution for small animal imaging.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.299-309
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• 2001

In PET(Positron Emission Tomography), it is necessary to use transmission scan data in order to estimate the attenuation map. Recently, there are several empirical studies in which one might be able to estimate attenuation map and activity distribution simultaneously with emissive sinogram alone without transmission scan. However, their algorithms are based on the model in which does not include the background counts term, and so is unrealistic. If the background counts component has been included in the model, their algorithm would introduce non-monotonic reconstruction algorithm which results in vain in practice. in this paper, we develop a monotonic and parallelizable algorithm for simultaneous reconstruction of both characteristics and present the validity through some simulations.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.43-45
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• 2018

Purpose In this study, we evaluated image by applying with and without point spread function algorithm(PSF) according to reconstruction type. Materials and Methods Biograph mMR (Siemens, Germany) was used as PET/MR scanner. For phantom study, we used NEMA IEC Body phantom maintaining radioactivity ratio (hotsphere:background = 8:1). To evaluate phantom image quality, percent contrast recovery and signal to noise ratio (SNR) were used by drawing ROI to 4 spheres. In clinical study, the 20 patients who underwent simultaneous PET/MR was selected and set the ROI at liver. we evaluated images as SNR. Results In the phantom results, The percent contrast recovery applying PSF algoritm was high 5 % compared to without PSF algoritm and SNR was also high 11 %. In the clinical study result, we confirmed that The SNR applying PSF algoritm was high 5 % compared to without PSF algoritm. Conclusion We need to simulate a lot of phantom study and clinical analysis to improve image quality for PET/MRI.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.81-98
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• 2020

This review aims to provide a brief, comprehensive overview of advanced technologies of nuclear medicine physics, with a focus on recent developments from both hardware and software perspectives. Developments in image acquisition/reconstruction, especially the time-of-flight and point spread function, have potential advantages in the image signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution. Modern detector materials and devices (including lutetium oxyorthosilicate, cadmium zinc tellurium, and silicon photomultiplier) as well as modern nuclear medicine imaging systems (including positron emission tomography [PET]/computerized tomography [CT], whole-body PET, PET/magnetic resonance [MR], and digital PET) enable not only high-quality digital image acquisition, but also subsequent image processing, including image reconstruction and post-reconstruction methods. Moreover, theranostics in nuclear medicine extend the usefulness of nuclear medicine physics far more than quantitative image-based diagnosis, playing a key role in personalized/precision medicine by raising the importance of internal radiation dosimetry in nuclear medicine. Now that deep-learning-based image processing can be incorporated in nuclear medicine image acquisition/processing, the aforementioned fields of nuclear medicine physics face the new era of Industry 4.0. Ongoing technological developments in nuclear medicine physics are leading to enhanced image quality and decreased radiation exposure as well as quantitative and personalized healthcare.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.83-87
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• 2011

Purpose: Recently in diagnostics area PET/CT is using a variety of areas including oncology, as well as in cardiology, neurology, etc. While increasing in the importance of PET/CT, there are various researches in the image quality related to reconstruction method. We compared and tested Iterative 2D Reconstruction Method with True X Reconstruction method by Siemens through phantom experiment, so we can see increasing of clinical usefulness of PET/CT. Materials and Methods: We measured contrast ratio and FWHM due to evaluating images on dose and experiment using Biograph 40 True Point PET/CT (Siemens, Germany). Getting a result of contrast ratio and FWHM, we used NEMA IEC PET body phantom (Data Spectrum Corp.) and capillary tube. We used the current TrueX and the previous Iterative 2D algorithm for all images which have 10 minutes long. Also, a clinical suitability of parameter for Iterative 2D and a recommended parameter by Siemens for True X are applied to the experiment. Results: We tested FWHM using capillary tube. As a result, TrueX was less than Iterative 2D. Also, the differences of FWHM get bigger in low dose. On the other hand, we tested contrasts ratio using NEMA IEC PET body phantom. As a result, TrueX was better aspect than Iterative 2D. However, there was no difference in dose. Conclusion: In this experiment, TrueX get higher results of contrast ratio and spatial resolution than Itertive 2D through experiment. Also, in the reconstruction result through TrueX, TrueX had better aspect of resolution than Iterative 2D in low dose. However, contrast ratio had no specific difference. In other words, TrueX reconstruction method in PET/CT had higher clinical value in use because TrueX can reduce exposure of patient and had a better quality of screen.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.119-130
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• 2019

Positron emission tomography (PET) is widely used imaging modality for effective and accurate functional testing and medical diagnosis using radioactive isotopes. However, PET has difficulties in acquiring images with high image quality due to constraints such as the amount of radioactive isotopes injected into the patient, the detection time, the characteristics of the detector, and the patient's motion. In order to overcome this problem, we have succeeded to improve the image quality by using the dynamic image reconstruction method based on singular value decomposition. However, there is still some question about the characteristics of the proposed technique. In this study, the characteristics of reconstruction method based on singular value decomposition was estimated over computational simulation. As a result, we confirmed that the singular value decomposition based reconstruction technique distinguishes the images well when the signal - to - noise ratio of the input image is more than 20 decibels and the feature vector angle is more than 60 degrees. In addition, the proposed methode to estimate the characteristics of reconstruction technique can be applied to other spatio-temporal feature based dynamic image reconstruction techniques. The deduced conclusion of this study can be useful guideline to apply medical image into SVD based dynamic image reconstruction technique to improve the accuracy of medical diagnosis.