A scanner specific sinogram model for PET image reconstruction

The authors report on the development of an analytic sinogram model to evaluate distortion correction and image reconstruction algorithms in positron emission tomography. This physical model is based on measured characteristics of a multi-slice PET scanner and incorporates 3-D detector response, detection efficiency, attenuation, scatter, randoms and Poisson statistics. The authors validate their method by comparing simulated and measured projection data of a 3-D Hoffman brain phantom. In this paper the authors briefly describe their algorithm and present data from the validation study