Evaluation of simulation-based scatter correction for 3D PET cardiac imaging

Quantitative imaging of the human thorax poses one of the most difficult challenges for 3D (septaless) PET, due to the strong attenuation of the annihilation radiation and the large contribution of scattered photons to the data. In FDG studies of the heart with the patient's arms in the field of view, the contribution of scattered events can exceed 50% of the total detected coincidences. Accurate correction for this scatter component is necessary for meaningful quantitative image analysis and tracer kinetic modeling. For this reason, we have implemented a single-scatter simulation technique for scatter correction in positron volume imaging. In this paper we describe this algorithm, and present scatter correction results from human and chest phantom studies.