US 11,874,411 B2
Estimation of partially missing attenuation in time-of-flight positron emission tomography
Vladimir Panin, Knoxville, TN (US); and Deepak Bharkhada, Knoxville, TN (US)
Assigned to Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Malvern, PA (US)
Filed by Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Malvern, PA (US)
Filed on Sep. 23, 2020, as Appl. No. 16/948,554.
Prior Publication US 2022/0091286 A1, Mar. 24, 2022
Int. Cl. A61B 6/03 (2006.01); G06N 3/02 (2006.01); G06F 18/214 (2023.01); G01T 1/29 (2006.01); G01T 1/20 (2006.01); G06T 11/00 (2006.01)
CPC G01T 1/2985 (2013.01) [A61B 6/032 (2013.01); A61B 6/037 (2013.01); G01T 1/2018 (2013.01); G06F 18/214 (2023.01); G06N 3/02 (2013.01); G06T 11/008 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for reconstructing in positron emission tomography with partially known attenuation, the method comprising:
acquiring, with a computed tomography (CT) scanner, first attenuation information for a CT volume of a patient, the first attenuation information comprising the partially known attenuation;
acquiring, with a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner having a plurality of detectors, time-of-flight data along lines-of-response from emissions, the first attenuation information available for a first subset of the lines-of-response and unavailable for at least parts of the lines of response of a second subset of the lines-of-response;
generating, by a machine-trained neural network, second attenuation information for the at least parts of the lines of response of the second subset;
reconstructing an image object of activity in the patient from the time-of-flight data including the lines of response of the first and second subsets, the reconstructing being a function of the first attenuation information along the lines of response of the first subset and the generated second attenuation information along the lines of response of the second subset; and
displaying an image of the reconstructed image object.