Object-specific attenuation correction of SPECT with correlated dual-energy X-ray CT

Bruce H. Hasegawa, Thomas F. Lang, J. Keenan Brown, Eric L. Gingold, Susan M. Reilly, Stephen C. Blankespoor, Soo Chin Liew, Benjamin M.W. Tsui, Chandrasekhar Ramanathan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

56 Scopus citations

Abstract

We have developed a prototype emission-transmission computed tomographic (ETCT) system, which can acquire both radionuclide-emission and dual-energy X-ray transmission data. The dual-energy X-ray data are used to synthesize an object- and energy-specific attenuation map which is incorporated into an ML-EM algorithm to reconstruct an attenuation-corrected SPECT image. The technique was applied to a thorax-like phantom with regions simulating lung, background and cardiac regions, and bone. SPECT images reconstructed with no attenuation correction, or with a uniform water-equivalent map, contained increased count levels in the lung region and reduced count levels in the cardiac region as compared with the radioactivity concentrations contained in the phantom. Use of an object-specific attenuation map improved the accuracy of the reconstruction, but overestimated the activity in the cardiac chamber by about 10%. This error was reduced to about 5% when the attenuation coefficients were modified to include the effects of scattered radiation.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)Part2
JournalIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
Volume40
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 1993
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Nuclear Energy and Engineering
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Object-specific attenuation correction of SPECT with correlated dual-energy X-ray CT'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this