System and method reconstructing a nuclear medicine image using deformed attenuation image

Abstract

According to some embodiments, an emission tomography scanner may acquire emission scan data. One or more anatomical images may be generated using an anatomical imaging system, and the anatomical images may be processed to obtain an initial attenuation image. An emission image and a corrected attenuation image may be jointly reconstructed from the acquired emission scan data, the corrected attenuation image representing a deformation of the initial attenuation image. A final reconstructed emission image may then be calculated based on the reconstructed emission image and / or the corrected attenuation image. The final reconstructed emission image may then be stored in a data storage system and / or displayed on a display system.

Description

BACKGROUND[0001]The invention relates generally to tomographic imaging and, more particularly, to methods and systems for correcting for motion-induced attenuation mismatch for use in tomographic imaging.[0002]Tomographic imaging has become an integral part of healthcare services. Examples of tomographic imaging include Positron Emission Tomography (“PET”) imaging, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (“SPECT”) imaging, X-ray Computed Tomography (“CT”) imaging, and magnetic resonance imaging (“MRI”). In CT imaging, X-rays are propagated through the body and are detected on the other side of the body. The X-rays are attenuated to different degrees depending on encountered bodily structures, resulting in an image showing the structural features of the body. MRI also creates images of the internal structures of the human body by exploiting the property of nuclear magnetic resonance. MRI provides good contrast resolution by using various optimized radio frequency pulse sequences. ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent text describes a method for improving the accuracy of emissions tomography scanners by correcting for motion-induced attenuation mismatches. The method involves acquiring emission scan data, generating anatomical images, processing them to obtain an initial attenuation image, reconstructing an emission image and a corrected attenuation image, and calculating a final reconstructed emission image. The final reconstructed emission image is then stored or displayed. The technical effect of this method is to improve the accuracy and reliability of emissions tomography scanners, which can aid in the diagnosis and treatment of various medical conditions.

Problems solved by technology

However, PET imaging does not generally provide structural details as well as other types of scanners such as CT and MRI scanners.

Respiratory motion may result in artifacts and / or contrast dilution of lesions from motion blurring.

However, the reduction in blur may come at the expense of increased image noise because each gate has fewer counts than the un-gated image.

Although the RRA approach using respiratory gated PET data may address respiratory motion blur, a respiratory phase mismatch may exist between an attenuation image that is used in a PET image reconstruction process and each respiratory gated PET data set since the attenuation image may be obtained from a CT image, which is usually taken while the subject is holding his or her breath.

This mismatch may generate undesirable artifacts in reconstructed PET images for each gate or the output PET image of the RRA approach, preventing accurate PET quantitation.

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