Statistical analysis of maximum likelihood estimator images of human brain FDG PET studies

Journal Article · Tue Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993 · IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/42.232250· OSTI ID:6084492

Llacer, J; Veklerov, E ^[1]; Hoffman, E J ^[2]; Nunez, J ^[3]; Coakley, K J

---

1. Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (United States)
2. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Radiological Sciences
3. Univ. de Barcelona (Spain), Facultat de Fisica

The work presented in this paper evaluates the statistical characteristics of regional bias and expected error in reconstructions of real PET data of human brain fluorodeoxiglucose (FDG) studies carried out by the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) method with a robust stopping rule, and compares them with the results of filtered backprojection (FBP) reconstructions and with the method of sieves. The task that the authors have investigated is that of quantifying radioisotope uptake in regions-of-interest (ROI's). They first describe a robust methodology for the use of the MLE method with clinical data which contains only one adjustable parameter: the kernel size for a Gaussian filtering operation that determines final resolution and expected regional error. Simulation results are used to establish the fundamental characteristics of the reconstructions obtained by out methodology, corresponding to the case in which the transition matrix is perfectly known. Then, data from 72 independent human brain FDG scans from four patients are used to show that the results obtained from real data are consistent with the simulation, although the quality of the data and of the transition matrix have an effect on the final outcome.

• DOE Contract Number: FC03-87ER60615
• OSTI ID: 6084492
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States), Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States) Vol. 12:2; ISSN 0278-0062; ISSN ITMID4
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

550601* -- Medicine-- Unsealed Radionuclides in Diagnostics
62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE
ACCURACY
ANIMALS
BODY
BRAIN
CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
COMPUTERIZED TOMOGRAPHY
DATA COVARIANCES
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
EMISSION COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY
IMAGE PROCESSING
MAMMALS
MAN
MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD FIT
NERVOUS SYSTEM
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
ORGANS
POSITRON COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY
PRIMATES
PROCESSING
TOMOGRAPHY
VERTEBRATES