Surti Suleman, Karp Joel S
Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Phys Med. 2016 Jan;32(1):12-22. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmp.2015.12.007. Epub 2016 Jan 6.
This paper provides a review and an update on time-of-flight PET imaging with a focus on PET instrumentation, ranging from hardware design to software algorithms. We first present a short introduction to PET, followed by a description of TOF PET imaging and its history from the early days. Next, we introduce the current state-of-art in TOF PET technology and briefly summarize the benefits of TOF PET imaging. This is followed by a discussion of the various technological advancements in hardware (scintillators, photo-sensors, electronics) and software (image reconstruction) that have led to the current widespread use of TOF PET technology, and future developments that have the potential for further improvements in the TOF imaging performance. We conclude with a discussion of some new research areas that have opened up in PET imaging as a result of having good system timing resolution, ranging from new algorithms for attenuation correction, through efficient system calibration techniques, to potential for new PET system designs.
本文对飞行时间正电子发射断层扫描（TOF PET）成像进行了综述和更新，重点关注PET仪器，涵盖从硬件设计到软件算法的各个方面。我们首先简要介绍PET，接着描述TOF PET成像及其早期发展历程。接下来，我们介绍TOF PET技术的当前技术水平，并简要总结TOF PET成像的优势。随后讨论了硬件（闪烁体、光电传感器、电子设备）和软件（图像重建）方面的各种技术进步，这些进步促成了TOF PET技术目前的广泛应用，以及未来可能进一步提升TOF成像性能的发展方向。最后，我们讨论了由于具备良好的系统定时分辨率而在PET成像中开辟的一些新研究领域，从用于衰减校正的新算法，到高效的系统校准技术，再到新型PET系统设计的潜力。
