Maximum a Posteriori Reconstruction using PRESTO and PET/MR data acquired Simultaneously with the 3TMR-BrainPET

In this paper, a Maximum a Posteriori Reconstruction algorithm is applied for the first time to the Siemens 3TMR BrainPET scanner. The implementation of this algorithm is done in the PET REconstruction Software TOolkit. This software is able to cope with 3D PET listmode data and can deal with the specificities of the Siemens 3TMR BrainPET scanner. Simulated data was used to assess the performance of the algorithm. Several a priori distributions were tested and the results are compared to OSEM reconstruction. Simultaneously acquired PET and MR data of a human patient was used to show the feasibility of the Maximum a Posteriori algorithm. The results are promising and expected to improve clinical applications.