Noise characteristics of the FORE+OSEM(DB) reconstruction method for the MiCES PET scanner
The FORE+OSEM(DB) image reconstruction method has been proposed for the fully-3D MiCES PET scanner under construction at the University of Washington. It is based on Fourier rebinning followed by 2D OSEM and an incorporated model of detector blurring (DB). As an extension, this paper presents the noise/resolution characteristics of this method. Multiple realizations were simulated to estimate the noise properties of the algorithm. The results are compared with OSEM followed by post reconstruction 3D Gaussian smoothing. The results show that the incorporation of detector blurring (OSEM(DB)) into the system matrix improves resolution compared to OSEM, while also inducing an increased variance at all radial locations. In addition, radially-varying noise characteristics are more apparent with OSEM(DB) than with OSEM.