Edge preserving penalized reconstruction for step-and-shoot and motion compensated positron emission tomogrpahy (pet) studies

An imaging system, comprising:

• a positron emission tomography (PET) imaging device;
• and
• at least one electronic processor programmed to:
• receive imaging data on a frame by frame basis for frames along an axial direction with neighboring frames overlapping along the axial direction wherein the frames include at least a volume (k) and a succeeding volume (k+1) at least partially overlapping the volume (k) along the axial direction;
• and
• generate an image of the volume (k) using an iterative image reconstruction process in which an iteration of the iterative image reconstruction process includes:
• computing a local penalty function for suppressing noise over the volume (k) including reducing the value of the local penalty function in an overlap region, the local penalty function depending on the total coincidence counts passing through the voxel being penalized, and the value of the local penalty function is reduced in the overlap region by an amount compensating for the total coincidence counts passing through the voxel being penalized in the succeeding volume k+1;
• generating an update image of the volume (k) using imaging data from the volume (k) and further using the local penalty function;
• wherein the reconstructing includes:
• combining the number of counts from the volumes (k) in the imaging data into a total volume;
• and
• reconstructing the total volume into a reconstructed image.

An imaging method performed on imaging data on a frame by frame basis for frames along an axial direction with neighboring frames overlapping along the axial direction wherein the frames include at least a volume (k) and a succeeding volume (k+1) at least partially overlapping the volume (k) along the axial direction, the method comprising:

• generating an image of the volume (k) using an iterative image reconstruction process in which an iteration of the iterative image reconstruction process includes:
• computing a local penalty function for suppressing noise over the volume (k) including reducing the value of the local penalty function in an overlap region, the local penalty function depends on local geometric sensitivity of the PET imaging device and the value of the local penalty function is reduced in the overlap region by an amount compensating for loss of geometric sensitivity due to axial truncation of the volume (k);
• generating an update image of the volume (k) using imaging data from the volume (k) and further using the local penalty function;
• wherein the reconstructing includes:
• reconstructing the volume (k) of the imaging data separately from the other volumes (k) of the imaging data into a reconstructed image.

An imaging method performed on imaging data on a frame by frame basis for frames along an axial direction with neighboring frames overlapping along the axial direction wherein the frames include at least a volume (k) and a succeeding volume (k+1) at least partially overlapping the volume (k) along the axial direction, the method comprising:

• generating an image of the volume (k) using an iterative image reconstruction process in which an iteration of the iterative image reconstruction process includes:
• adjusting the imaging data with respiratory gating using two or more gate phases and motion detected in the gate phases;
• computing a local penalty function for suppressing noise over the volume (k) including reducing the value of the local penalty function in an overlap region;
• generating an update image of the volume (k) using imaging data from the volume (k) and further using the local penalty function.