Respiratory Motion Gating Based on List-Mode Data in 3D PET: A Simulation Study Using the Dynamic NCAT Phantom

The PET image quality can be degraded due to respiratory motion artifacts. To improve image quality, gating techniques utilizing the tracking information are able to compensate for respiratory motion. In this paper, we present a gating method that utilizes the geometric sensitivity feature of a 3D-PET scanner system operating in list event acquisition mode. The respiratory phase can be determined from count rate changes which are determined to suitable temporal resolution from the list-mode data stream. This method has several advantages over the existing methods; it only uses LOR events and is non-invasive, no additional hardware device systems are required and there is no additional patient preparation required. Simulation result demonstrates that the geometric sensitivity gating (GSG) method is able to reduce respiratory motion artifacts.