Quantitative evaluation of Half-Cone-Beam data acquisition trajectories in triple- camera brain SPECT

In this study related to human brain SPECT imaging, simulation of half-cone-beam collimation with different scan paths is performed and compared with simulated fan-beam and parallel-hole circular orbit acquisitions. Acquisition types are quantitatively evaluated based on photon detection efficiency, root-mean-squared error (RMSE) and contrast measurements of reconstructed images. We demonstrate that triple-HCB collimation with a circle-and-helix scan path can offer up to 26% and 128% efficiency increase over fan-beam and parallel-hole collimators (for equal spatial resolutions) correspondingly, and display no visible axial sampling artifacts in reconstructed images. It has a potential for improved data acquisition and image reconstruction, producing higher image quality with smaller reconstruction error (RMSE) and better lesion detectability compared to fan-beam, parallel-hole and half-cone- beam circular orbit acquisitions.