title: Regularized ML reconstruction for time/dose reduction in (18)F-fluoride PET/CT studies.
abstract: We are proposing a regularized reconstruction strategy for the detection of bone lesions in (18)F-fluoride whole body PET images obtained with 1 min/bed using the anatomical information provided by co-registered CT images. Bones are recognized on CT images and then transposed into the PET volume framework. During PET reconstruction, two different priors are used for bone and non-bone voxels: the relative difference prior in bone and the P-Gaussian prior in non-bone. After a tuning of the priors' parameters, the reconstruction strategy has been tested on 6 (18)F-fluoride PET/CT studies, on a total of 67 lesions. Regularized images provided results comparable to the standard 3 min/bed images, in terms image quality, lesion activity, noise level and noise correlation. The proposed strategy therefore appears to be a useful tool to reduce the acquisition time or the injected dose in (18)F-fluoride PET studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences-Tecnomed Foundation, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20900 Monza, Italy. Department of Nuclear Medicine, IRCCS, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, 20132 Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Elisabetta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: De Bernardi
authors.forename: Patrizia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Magnani
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gianolli
authors.forename: Maria Carla
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Gilardi
authors.forename: Valentino
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Bettinardi
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016477:Artifacts; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18