A New Reconstruction Algorithm for High-resolution Micro PET
Positron emission tomography (PET) is a widely applied clinical and research device enabling the visualization, characterization and quantification of biologic processes taking place at the cellular and subcellular levels within intact living subjects (1-3). Various tracers have been developed in cardiology, oncology and neurology. The imaging has demonstrated significant value in precision medicine. Preclinical PET device is a powerful tool for investigating biology and pathology on murine models of disease and other small-animal models (1, 4). However, the accuracy of PET reconstruction needs to compromise between resolution and noise.
The proposed master thesis will develop a novel regularization approach to integrate additional prior information to improve the PET reconstruction. It will employ the realistic Monte-Carlo simulation using Geant4/GATE (5) to generate prior information of the machine for the regularization during the reconstruction. In particular, sparse regularization algorithm will be explored to improve the quality of the reconstruction. The student is expected to have good knowledge in medical imaging. Advanced skill in C and Matlab programming is required.
References:
(1)
McElroy? DP, et al. (2005) A true singles list-mode data acquisition system for a small animal PET scanner with independent crystal readout. Physics in medicine and biology 50(14):3323-3335.
(2) Vaquero JJ & Kinahan P (2015) Positron Emission Tomography: Current Challenges and Opportunities for Technological Advances in Clinical and Preclinical Imaging Systems. Annual review of biomedical engineering 17:385-414.
(3) Peng BH & Levin CS (2010) Recent development in PET instrumentation. Current pharmaceutical biotechnology 11(6):555-571.
(4) Judenhofer MS, et al. (2008) Simultaneous PET-MRI: a new approach for functional and morphological imaging. Nature medicine 14(4):459-465.
(5) Moreau M, et al. (2015) Assessment of a fully 3D Monte Carlo reconstruction method for preclinical PET with iodine-124. Physics in medicine and biology 60(6):2475-2491.