Kinetic parameter estimation from attenuated SPECT projection measurements

Kinetic parameters are commonly estimated from dynamically acquired nuclear medicine data by first reconstructing a temporal sequence of images and subsequently fitting the parameters to time-activity curves generated from regions of interest overlaid upon the image sequence. Biased estimates can result from images reconstructed using inconsistent projections of a time-varying distribution of radiopharmaceutical acquired by a rotating SPECT system. To overcome this problem the authors investigated the estimation of kinetic parameters directly from projection data by modeling the data acquisition process. To accomplish this it was necessary to parametrize the spatial and temporal distribution of the radiopharmaceutical within the SPECT field of view. In a simulated transverse slice, kinetic parameters were estimated for simple one compartment models for three myocardial regions of interest, as well as for the liver. Myocardial uptake and washout parameters estimated by conventional analysis of noiseless simulated data had biases ranging between 1-63%. Parameters estimated directly from the noiseless projection data were unbiased as expected, since the model used for fitting was faithful to the simulation. Parameter uncertainties for 500,000 detected events ranged between 1-25% for the myocardial uptake parameters and 1-18% for the myocardial washout parameters.