A Postprocessing Method for Compensation of Scatter and Collimator Blurring in SPECT: A Proof-of-Concept Study

Attenuation, scatter, and blurring are 3 major contributors to SPECT image degradation. Image reconstruction without compensation for these degradations results in reduced contrast and reduced quantitative accuracy. In this proof-of-concept study, we present an efficient postprocessing method to compensate for the scatter and blurring effect in SPECT. Methods: A raw image is first reconstructed with attenuation correction only. Then, a 2-dimensional (2D) point spread function (PSF) in the image domain is estimated to model the scatter and blurring. This spatially variant 2D PSF is fitted with an asymmetric gaussian function. The accuracy of the estimated 2D PSF is compared with that estimated from the Monte Carlo simulations and the scatter response functions in the projection domain. A further-blurring-and-deconvolution method is used to restore images with the spatially variant 2D PSF. Results: The method is tested using computer simulations and a phantom experiment. The preliminary results demonstrate an improvement in image quality, with increased image contrast and quantitative accuracy, and the feasibility of this postprocessing method. Conclusion: We present a proof-of-concept study for a postprocessing method to compensate for scatter and blurring. Our results indicate that the method is a promising alternative to the state-of-the-art compensation methods thanks to its easy and fast implementation.