High Sensitivity of the Maximum Likelihood Estimator Method of Tomographic Image Reconstruction

摘要

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) images obtained by the MLE iterative method of image reconstruction converge towards strongly deteriorated versions of the original source image. The image deterioration is caused by an excessive attempt by the algorithm to match the projection data with high counts. The authors can modulate this effect. The authors compared a source image with reconstructions by filtered backprojection to the MLE algorithm to show that the MLE images can have similar noise to the filtered backprojection images at regions of high activity and very low noise, comparable to the source image, in regions of low activity, if the iterative procedure is stopped at an appropriate point. (ERA citation 12:033860)