Effects of collimator dependency and correction methods on I-123 SPECT images using x-ray-based attenuation map

Low energy (LE) collimator is generally used in I-123 SPECT imaging. However, the septal penetration and scattering of photons emitted with energy above 159 keV will affect the image contrast and quantitative accuracy of images. To reduce this effect, medium energy (ME) collimator has been used with the cost of lower counting statistics and spatial resolution. The effects of collimator dependency on the quantitative accuracy of attenuation corrected (AC) I-123 SPECT images using X-ray-based attenuation map was investigated. Both brain and heart/thorax phantoms were used to evaluate different degree of attenuation effect between brain and thorax. Experiments were performed at different target-to-background ratios to simulate different object contrast. Both photopeak and scatter projections were collected for dual-energy window scatter correction (SC). Images were reconstructed and compared using different reconstruction methods, which included FBP (filtered backprojection), and OSEM (ordered subset expectation maximization) without corrections, with AC, with SC, and with AC and SC. In both phantom studies, the image contrast and quantitative accuracy were both improved with the use of CT-based transmission map for AC. The image contrast provided by ME collimator was better than that of LE collimator, especially in the region with void activity of thorax phantom. From the results of phantom studies, medium energy collimator with CT-based transmission map showed improvements in image contrast and quantitative accuracy of I-123 SPECT images.