The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 26, 2008
Filed:
Dec. 22, 2005
Michel Defrise, Brussels, BE;
Michael E. Casey, Knoxville, TN (US);
Christian J. Michel, Lenoir City, TN (US);
Maurizio Conti, Knoxville, TN (US);
Michel Defrise, Brussels, BE;
Michael E. Casey, Knoxville, TN (US);
Christian J. Michel, Lenoir City, TN (US);
Maurizio Conti, Knoxville, TN (US);
CTI PET Systems, Inc., Knoxville, TN (US);
Abstract
Fast reconstruction methods are provided for 3D time-of-flight (TOF) positron emission tomography (PET), based on 2D data re-binning. Starting from pre-corrected 3D TOF data, a re-binning algorithm estimates for each transaxial slice the 2D TOF sinogram. The re-binned sinograms can then be reconstructed using any algorithm for 2D TOF reconstruction. A TOF-FORE (Fourier re-binning of TOF data) algorithm is provided as an approximate re-binning algorithm obtained by extending the Fourier re-binning method for non-TOF data. In addition, two partial differential equations are identified that must be satisfied by consistent 3D TOF data, and are used to derive exact re-binning algorithms and to characterize the degree of the approximation in TOF-FORE. Numerical simulations demonstrate that TOF-FORE is more accurate than two different TOF extensions of the single-slice re-binning method, and suggest that TOF-FORE will be a valuable tool for practical TOF PET in the range of axial apertures and time resolutions typical of current scanners.