Compton scattered imaging based on the V-line radon transform and its medical imaging applications

Abstract

The Radon transform (RT) on straight lines deals as mathematical foundation for many tomographic modalities (e.g. Xray scanner, Positron Emission Tomography), using only primary radiation. In this paper, we consider a new RT defined on a pair of half-lines forming a letter V, arising from the modeling a two-dimensional emission imaging process by Compton scattered gamma rays. We establish its analytic inverse, which is shown to support the feasibility of the reconstruction of a two-dimensional image from scattered radiation collected on a one-dimensional collimated camera. Moreover, a filtered back-projection inversion method is also constructed. Its main advantages are algorithmic efficiency and computational rapidity. We present numerical simulations to illustrate the working. To sum up, the V-line RT leads not only to a new imaging principle, but also to a new concept of detector with high energetic resolution capable to collect the scattered radiation.