Quantitative comparison of CT-free attenuation correction frameworks of PET imaging in LAFOV PET/CT systems
Abstract
Abstract Objective High sensitivity of long axial field-of-view (LAFOV) PET/CT systems enables diagnostic PET imaging with substantially reduced injected activity, increasing the relative contribution of CT to overall radiation exposure. Although multiple CT-free PET frameworks have been proposed, differences in evaluation methodology, including the use of scan-specific CT-information for precise patient-bed placement or for image registrations to handle PET-CT misalignments, complicate direct performance comparisons. This study performed a unified, CT-independent evaluation of CT-free frameworks for quantitative 18 F-FDG LAFOV PET imaging. Methods Six CT-free attenuation correction frameworks were investigated using the same non-curated patient dataset. Two attenuation-map ( μ -map) generation approaches were first evaluated: a physics-based one in which transmission scans were performed using the intrinsic background radiation of lutetium oxyorthosilicate scintillators (LSO-Tx), eventually generating \({\mu}_{\mathrm{LSO\text{-}Tx}}\), and a data-driven approach in which a convolutional neural network (CNN) synthesized \({\mu}_{\mathrm{CNN}}\) from non-attenuation-corrected (NAC) PET image. Additional physics-based enhancements of both approaches were investigated by independently using the maximum likelihood-based reconstruction algorithms of activity and attenuation (MLAA) or attenuation correction factors (MLACF), generating the physics-based…
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