Analytic time-of-flight positron emission tomography reconstruction: threedimensional case

In a positron emission tomography(PET)scanner,the time-of-flight(TOF)information gives us rough event position along the line-of-response(LOR).Using the TOF information for PET image reconstruction is able to reduce image noise.The state-of-the-art TOF PET image reconstruction uses iterative algorithms.This study introduces an analytic TOF PET algorithm that focuses on three-dimensional(3D)reconstruction.The proposed algorithm is in the form of backprojection filtering,in which the backprojection is performed first by using a time-resolution profile function,and then a 3D filter is applied to the backprojected image.For the list-mode data,the backprojection is carried out in the event-by-event fashion,and the timing resolution determined weighting function is used along the projection LOR.Computer simulations are carried out to verify the feasibility of the proposed algorithm.