Attenuated radon transform: theory and application in medicine and biology

Technical Report · Fri Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1979

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5975580· OSTI ID:5975580

Gullberg, G T

A detailed analysis is given of the properties of the attenuated Radon transform and of how increases in photon attenuation influence the numerical accuracy and computation efficiency of iterative and convolution algorithms used to determine its inversion. The practical applications for this work involve quantitative assessment of the distribution of injected radiopharmaceuticals and radionuclides in man and animals for basic physiological and biochemical studies as well as clinical studies in nuclear medicine. A mathematical structure is developed using function theory and the theory of linear operators on Hilbert spaces which lends itself to better understanding the spectral properties of the attenuated Radon transform. The continuous attenuated Radon transform reduces to a matrix operator for discrete angular and lateral sampling, and the reconstruction problem reduces to a system of linear equations. For the situation of variable attenuation coefficient frequently found in nuclear medicine applications of imaging the heart and chest, the procedure developed in this thesis involves iterative techniques of performing the generalized inverse. For constant attenuation coefficient less than 0.15 cm/sup -1/, convolution methods can reliably reconstruct a 30 cm object with 0.5 cm resolution. However, for high attenuation coefficients or for the situation where there is variable attenuation such as reconstruction of distribution of isotopes in the heart, iterative techniques developed in this thesis give the best results. (ERB)

• Research Organization: California Univ., Berkeley (USA). Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 5975580
• Report Number(s): LBL-7486
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

550601* -- Medicine-- Unsealed Radionuclides in Diagnostics
560171 -- Radiation Effects-- Nuclide Kinetics & Toxicology-- Man-- (-1987)
62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE
63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990200 -- Mathematics & Computers
ATTENUATION
BODY
CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM
CAT SCANNING
DATA
DATA FORMS
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
DISTRIBUTION
DRUGS
ECAT SCANNING
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
EMISSION
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
HEART
INFORMATION
INJECTION
INTAKE
ISOLATED VALUES
ITERATIVE METHODS
LABELLED COMPOUNDS
LUNGS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
NUMERICAL DATA
ORGANS
PATIENTS
PHOTON EMISSION
PHOTON EMISSION SCANNING
PHOTON TRANSMISSION SCANNING
PHOTONS
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
RADIOPHARMACEUTICALS
RESPIRATORY SYSTEM
TISSUE DISTRIBUTION
TISSUES
TOMOGRAPHY
TOPOLOGICAL MAPPING
TRANSFORMATIONS