On-line tof-pet mashed rebinning for continuous bed motion acquisitions

A system comprising:

• a TOF-PET (time of flight-Positron Emission Tomography) detector array having a stationary field of view (FOV);
• means for continuously moving a patient bed through the detector array for a distance in excess of the physical extent of an axis of the array FOV;
• a direct memory access (DMA) rebinner card coupled to the detector array to receive therefrom a stream of TOF-PET coincidence event data during the extent of movement of the bed;
• and
• a processor coupled to the DMA card;
• wherein the processor is configured to generate image projection data in real time from the acquired stream of TOF-PET coincidence event data.