Respiratory Motion Estimation in Projection Domain in Nuclear Medical Imaging
AssigneeSiemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.
InventorsJames Chester Sanders, III, Alexander Hans Vija
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In nuclear medical imaging, respiratory motion is corrected. Rather than pairwise estimation of motion from projection views, a sequence-based technique is used to jointly estimate parameters for a motion model across many projection views. In one approach, this sequence-based method is iteratively solved with a maximum likelihood objective function incorporating the motion model. A surrogate respiration signal is used to gate for the joint estimation and used to convert gated motion parameters to temporal motion parameters.
Claims20
A method for correction of respiratory motion in a nuclear medical imaging system, the method comprising:
- detecting, with a nuclear imaging detector, emissions over time from a patient, the detected emissions comprising projection data and are subject to respiration motion of the patient;
- gating the projection data into three or more sets;
- estimating the respiration motion with an iterative solution of a maximum likelihood objective function based on the gated projection data of the three or more sets, the objective function including a motion model with parameters of the respiration motion;
- reconstructing an image object of the patient from the projection data with the respiration motion used to correct the projection data used in reconstruction or used in the reconstructing;
- and
- generating an image of the reconstructed image object.
A method for correction of respiratory motion in a single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) medical imaging system, the method comprising:
- respiration gating SPECT emission data of a patient with a surrogate respiration signal into respiration gated sets of SPECT emission data;
- jointly estimating two-dimensional motion vectors across the respiration gated sets of SPECT emission data;
- determining respiration motion as a function of time from the surrogate respiration signal and the two-dimensional motion vectors;
- and
- generating a SPECT image of the patient from the SPECT emission data and the respiration motion.
A nuclear imaging system comprising:
- a detector for detecting signals along lines of response from a patient;
- a motion processor configured to determine a respiration surrogate signal form the signals, gate the signals with the respiration surrogate signal into three or more gated sets, jointly solve for motion in all the gated sets with iterative solution based on a motion model of the motion;
- a reconstruction processor configured to reconstruct an image of the signals from the patient, the image being a function of the motion used in reconstruction or used in correction of the signals;
- and
- a display configured to display the image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.