System, method and/or computer readable medium for mitigation of effects from photon septal penetration in SPECT imaging

A computer-implemented method for a SPECT iterative reconstruction, comprising:

• forward projecting a current image estimate to estimate projection data;
• correcting the estimated projection data for collimator photon penetration;
• correcting the estimated projection data for scattered photons;
• comparing the corrected estimated projection data with measured projection data, wherein the measured projection data includes projections corresponding to direct photons passing through channels between septa in a collimator and septal photons traversing the septa and scattered photons;
• backprojecting the comparison of the corrected estimated projection data and the measured projection data taking into account only the photons emitted by a radiopharmaceutical traverse the channels without impinging the septa and are directly received by a detector to generate an image update;
• updating the current image estimate with the image update;
• and
• repeating the steps of forward projecting, correcting for collimator photon penetration, correcting for scatter photons, comparing, backprojecting and updating until iteration termination criteria is satisfied.

A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with computer executable instructions, which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• forward project a current image estimate to estimate projection data;
• correct the estimated projection data for collimator photon penetration;
• correct the estimated projection data for scatter photon;
• compare the corrected estimated projection data with measured projection data, wherein the measured projection data includes projections corresponding to direct photons passing through channels between septa in a collimator and septal photons traversing the septa and scattered photons;
• backproject the comparison of the corrected estimated projection data and the measured projection data taking into account only the photons emitted by a radiopharmaceutical traverse the channels without impinging the septa and are directly received by a detector to generate an image update;
• update the current image estimate with the image update;
• and repeat the steps of forward projecting, correcting for collimator photon penetration, correcting for scatter photons, comparing, backprojecting and updating until iteration termination criteria is satisfied.