A hybrid 3-D reconstruction/registration algorithm for correction of head motion in emission tomography

Even with head restraint, small head movements can occur during data acquisition in emission tomography that are sufficiently large to result in detectable artifacts in the final reconstruction. Direct measurement of motion can be cumbersome and difficult to implement, whereas previous attempts to use the measured projection data for correction have been limited to simple translation orthogonal to the projection. A fully three-dimensional (3-D) algorithm is proposed that estimates the patient orientation based on the projection of motion-corrupted data, with incorporation of motion information within subsequent ordered-subset expectation-maximization subiterations. Preliminary studies have been performed using a digital version of the Hoffman brain phantom. Movement was simulated by constructing a mixed set of projections in discrete positions of the phantom. The algorithm determined the phantom orientation that best matched each constructed projection with its corresponding measured projection. In the case of a simulated single movement in 24 of 64 projections, all misaligned projections were correctly identified. Incorporating data at the determined object orientation resulted in a reduction of mean square difference (MSD) between motion-corrected and motion-free reconstructions, compared to the MSD between uncorrected and motion-free reconstructions, by a factor of 1.9.

[1]  Thierry Vander Borght,et al.  Synthesis of [2-11C] thymidine : an imaging agent for cellular proliferation. , 1990 .

[2]  H. Malcolm Hudson,et al.  Accelerated image reconstruction using ordered subsets of projection data , 1994, IEEE Trans. Medical Imaging.

[3]  G Germano,et al.  Temporal image fractionation: rejection of motion artifacts in myocardial SPECT. , 1994, Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine.

[4]  Christopher J. Thompson,et al.  Digitized video subject positioning and surveillance system for PET , 1994, Proceedings of 1994 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium - NSS'94.

[5]  B F Hutton,et al.  Use of 3D reconstruction to correct for patient motion in SPECT. , 1994, Physics in medicine and biology.

[6]  T. Zeffiro,et al.  Head movement in normal subjects during simulated PET brain imaging with and without head restraint. , 1994, Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine.

[7]  R J Jaszczak,et al.  A filtered backprojection algorithm for axial head motion correction in fan-beam SPECT. , 1995, Physics in medicine and biology.

[8]  Michael A. King,et al.  Correction of organ motion in SPECT using reprojection data , 1995, 1995 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference Record.

[9]  I. Kanno,et al.  Automated interstudy image registration technique for SPECT and PET. , 1996, Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine.

[10]  M. S. Atkins,et al.  Compensation methods for head motion detected during PET imaging , 1996 .

[11]  Margaret E. Daube-Witherspoon,et al.  A head motion measurement system suitable for emission computed tomography , 1997, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[12]  C. J. Thompson,et al.  Motion correction of PET images using multiple acquisition frames , 1997, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[13]  Motion detection and correction using multi-rotation 180° single-photon emission tomography for thallium myocardial imaging , 1998, European Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

[14]  B. Lopresti,et al.  Implementation and performance of an optical motion tracking system for high resolution brain PET imaging , 1998, 1998 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record. 1998 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (Cat. No.98CH36255).

[15]  Charles L. Byrne,et al.  Accelerating the EMML algorithm and related iterative algorithms by rescaled block-iterative methods , 1998, IEEE Trans. Image Process..

[16]  S. Meikle,et al.  A practical 3D tomographic method for correcting patient head motion in clinical SPECT , 1998, 1998 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record. 1998 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (Cat. No.98CH36255).

[17]  D C Barber,et al.  Use of forward projection to correct patient motion during SPECT imaging. , 1998, Physics in medicine and biology.