Evaluation of Wavelet Kernel-Based PET Image Reconstruction

Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is used to track biochemical processes in the human body. PET image quality is limited by noise and several methods have been implemented to improve the quality. Kernel-based image reconstruction is among the methods implemented to increase PET image quality and commonly uses a Gaussian kernel to include spatial correlations from image priors into the forward projection model of PET. Unfortunately, the Gaussian kernel tends to smooth details in the reconstructed image. To reduce noise without losing contrast details, a different kernel is needed. Wavelet kernels can be more efficient than the Gaussian kernel in reducing noise while keeping contrast details by better separating signal from noise and thus, it does not over smooth peak values in the final reconstructed images. In this work, we evaluate a wavelet kernel for kernel-based PET image reconstruction. For this goal, a wavelet kernel approach has been tested using simulated brain data, physical phantom data, and patient data. Reconstruction results are presented and discussed in detail comparing the wavelet kernel method with the Gaussian kernel method. Our results suggest that a wavelet kernel performs better in contrast recovery for phantoms and also results in higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for real patient data.