title: Analytical properties of time-of-flight PET data.
abstract: We investigate the analytical properties of time-of-flight (TOF) positron emission tomography (PET) sinograms, where the data are modeled as line integrals weighted by a spatially invariant TOF kernel. First, we investigate the Fourier transform properties of 2D TOF data and extend the 'bow-tie' property of the 2D Radon transform to the time-of-flight case. Second, we describe a new exact Fourier rebinning method, TOF-FOREX, based on the Fourier transform in the time-of-flight variable. We then combine TOF-FOREX rebinning with a direct extension of the projection slice theorem to TOF data, to perform fast 3D TOF PET image reconstruction. Finally, we illustrate these properties using simulated data.
authors.affiliation: Signal and Image Processing Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
authors.forename: Sanghee
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Sangtae
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.forename: Quanzheng
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Leahy
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*