• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.73-81
• /
• 1999

Scatter correction for single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) plays an important role to improve image quality and quantitation. The purpose of this study was to investigate three scatter correction methods using Monte Carlo simulation. Point source and Jaszack phantom filled with Tc-99m were simulated by Monte Carlo code, SIMIND. For scatter correction, we applied three methods, Compton window (CW) method, triple window (TW) method, and dual photopeak window (DPW) method. Point sources located at various depths along the center line within a 20-cm phantom were simulated to calculate the window ratios and corresponding scatter fractions by evaluating the polynomial coefficients for DPW method. Energy windows were located in W$_1$=92-125 keV, W$_2$=124-126 keV, W$_3$=136-140 keV, W$_4$=140-141 keV, and W$_{5}$=154-156 keV. The results showed that in Jaszack phantom with cold sphere and hot sphere, the TW gave the closest contrast and percentage recovery to the ideal image, respectively, while CW overestimated and DPW underestimated the contrast of ideal one. All three scatter correction methods showed an improved image contrast. In conclusion, scatter correction is essential for improving image contrast and accurate quantification. The choice of scatter correction method should be made on the basis of accuracies and ease of implementation.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.93-101
• /
• 2015

Purpose In SPECT image, scatter count is the cause of quantitative count error and image quality degradation. Thus, a wide range of scatter correction(SC) methods have been studied and this study is to evaluate the accuracy of CT based SC(CTSC) used in SPECT/CT as the comparison with existing energy window based SC(EWSC). Materials and Methods SPECT/CT images were obtained after filling air in order to acquire a reference image without the influence of scatter count inside the Triple line insert phantom setting hot rod(74.0 MBq) in the middle and each SPECT/CT image was obtained each separately after filling water instead of air in order to derive the influence of scatter count under the same conditions. In both conditions, Astonish(iterative : 4 subset : 16) reconstruction method and CT attenuation correction were commonly applied and three types of SC methods such as non-scatter correction(NSC), EWSC, CTSC were used in images filled with image. For EWSC, 9 sub-energy windows were set additionally in addition to main(=peak) energy window(140 keV, 20%) and then, images were acquired at the same time and five types of EWSC including DPW(dual photo-peak window)10%, DEW(dual energy window)20%, TEW(triple energy window)10%, TEW5.0%, TEW2.5% were used. Under the condition without fluctuations in primary count, total count was measured by drawing volume of interest (VOI) in the images of the two conditions and then, the ratio of scatter count of total counts was calculated as percent scatter fraction(%SF) and the count error with image filled with water was evaluated with percent normalized mean-square error(%NMSE) based on the image filled with air. Results Based on the image filled with air, %SF of images filled with water to which each SC method was applied is NSC 37.44, DPW 27.41, DEW 21.84, TEW10% 19.60, TEW5% 17.02, TEW2.5% 14.68, CTSC 5.57 and the most scattering counts were removed in CTSC and %NMSE is NSC 35.80, DPW 14.28, DEW 7.81, TEW10% 5.94, TEW5% 4.21, TEW2.5% 2.96, CTSC 0.35 and the error in CTSC was found to be the lowest. Conclusion In SPECT/CT images, the application of each scatter correction method used in the experiment could improve the quantitative count error caused by the influence of scatter count. In particular, CTSC showed the lowest %NMSE(=0.35) compared to existing EWSC methods, enabling relatively accurate scatter correction.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.163-173
• /
• 1998

Nuclear medicine emission computed tomography(ECT) can be very useful to diagnose early stage of neuronal diseases and to measure theraputic results objectively, if we can quantitate energy metabolism, blood flow, biochemical processes, or dopamine receptor and transporter using ECT. However, physical factors including attenuation, scatter, partial volume effect, noise, and reconstruction algorithm make it very difficult to quantitate independent of type of SPECT. In this study, we quantitated the effects of attenuation and scatter using brain SPECT and three-dimensional brain phantom with and without applying their correction methods. Dual energy window method was applied for scatter correction. The photopeak energy window and scatter energy window were set to 140ke${\pm}$10% and 119ke${\pm}$6% and 100% of scatter window data were subtracted from the photopeak window prior to reconstruction. The projection data were reconstructed using Butterworth filter with cutoff frequency of 0.95cycles/cm and order of 10. Attenuation correction was done by Chang's method with attenuation coefficients of 0.12/cm and 0.15/cm for the reconstruction data without scatter correction and with scatter correction, respectively. For quantitation, regions of interest (ROIs) were drawn on the three slices selected at the level of the basal ganglia. Without scatter correction, the ratios of ROI average values between basal ganglia and background with attenuation correction and without attenuation correction were 2.2 and 2.1, respectively. However, the ratios between basal ganglia and background were very similar for with and without attenuation correction. With scatter correction, the ratios of ROI average values between basal ganglia and background with attenuation correction and without attenuation correction were 2.69 and 2.64, respectively. These results indicate that the attenuation correction is necessary for the quantitation. When true ratios between basal ganglia and background were 6.58, 4.68, 1.86, the measured ratios with scatter and attenuation correction were 76%, 80%, 82% of their true ratios, respectively. The approximate 20% underestimation could be partially due to the effect of partial volume and reconstruction algorithm which we have not investigated in this study, and partially due to imperfect scatter and attenuation correction methods that we have applied in consideration of clinical applications.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.382-390
• /
• 1998

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of radioactivity quantitation in Tc-99m SPECT by using combined scatter and attenuation correction. Materials and Methods: A cylindrical phantom which simulates tumors (T) and normal tissue (B) was filled with varying activity ratios of Tc-99m. We acquired emission scans of the phantom using a three-headed SPECT system (Trionix, Inc.) with two energy windows (photopeak window: $126{\sim}154keV$ and scatter window: $101{\sim}123keV$). We performed the scatter correction with dual-energy window subtraction method (k=0.4) and Chang attenuation correction. Three sets of SPECT images were reconstructed using combined scatter and attenuation correction (SC+AC), attenuation correction (AC) and without any correction (NONE). We compared T/B ratio, image contrast [(T-B)/(T+B)] and absolute radioactivity with true values. Results: SC+AC images had the highest mean values of T/B ratios. Image contrast was 0.92 in SC+AC, which was close to the true value of 1, and higher than AC (0.77) or NONE (0.80). Errors of true activity by SPECT images ranged from 1 to 11% for SC+AC, $22{\sim}47%$ for AC, and $2{\sim}16%$ for NONE in a phantom which was located 2.4cm from the phantom surface. In a phantom located 10.0cm from the surface, SC+AC underestimated by 24%, NONE 40%. However, AC overestimated by 10%. Conclusion: We conclude that accurate SPECT activity quantitation of Tc-99m distribution can be achieved by dual window scatter correction combind with attenuation correction.