Generalized inter-frame and intra-frame motion correction in PET imaging - a simulation study

Abstract

High resolution PET imaging is severely hampered by patient motion. Frame-acquired PET images suffer from inter-frame and intra-frame motion artifacts degrading image quality. The method of Multiple Acquisition Frames (MAF) [1] corrects inter-frame motion artifacts by removing average motion from all the independently reconstructed frames. The drawback is that a high motion threshold neglects considerable intra-frame motion and a low motion results in acquisition of low-statistic frames, thereby, degrading image quality. Increasing the number of frames proportionally increases reconstruction times [2].