Human-observer LROC study of lesion detection in Ga-67 SPECT images reconstructed using MAP with anatomical priors.
We compare the image quality of SPECT reconstruction with and without an anatomical prior. Area under the localization-response operating characteristic (LROC) curve is our figure of merit. Simulated Ga-67 citrate images, a SPECT lymph-nodule imaging agent, were generated using the MCAT digital phantom. Reconstructed images were read by human observers.Several reconstruction strategies are compared, including rescaled block iterative (RBI) and maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) with various priors. We find that MAP reconstruction using prior knowledge of organ and lesion boundaries significantly improves lesion-detection performance (p < 0.05). Pseudo-lesion boundaries, regions without increased uptake which are incorrectly treated as prior knowledge of lesion boundaries, do not decrease performance.
Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 55 Lake Ave N., Worcester, MA, 01655 USA (email: Andre.Lehovich@umassmed.edu ).
Andre
A
Lehovich
Philippe P
PP
Bruyant
Howard C
HC
Gifford
Peter B
PB
Schneider
Shane
S
Squires
Robert
R
Licho
Gene
G
Gindi
Michael A
MA
King