System and method for sensitivity-based patient positioning for emission tomography imaging

A method for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, comprising:

• estimating a sensitivity profile along an axial field of view (AFOV) of a PET scanner;
• increasing an acquisition time for a diagnostic scan relative to a standard acquisition time;
• acquiring scan data at a first bed position and at a second bed position during the increased acquisition time;
• and
• reconstructing a diagnostic image based on the acquired scan data, wherein the increased acquisition time expands an effective acquisition range beyond a zone of constant sensitivity of the sensitivity profile while maintaining a minimum sensitivity sufficient for diagnostic image quality.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an emission tomography imaging system, cause the processors to:

• acquire scan data at a first bed position and at a second bed position having overlapping scan ranges;
• during acquisition at one of the bed positions, limit contribution of detected events by turning off selected detector rings or by ignoring detected events for a portion of the AFOV;
• combine scan data from the first and second bed positions to generate a combined sensitivity profile that is substantially flat across a desired scan range;
• and
• reconstruct a diagnostic image from the combined scan data across the desired scan range.