A Reconstruction Method based on a Data Analysis Scheme for SPECT Imaging in Parkinson's Disease

We present a novel method for tomographic image reconstruction in the field of Dopamine Transporter (DAT) imaging with Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT). The reconstruction method implements the Athens Model Independent Analysis Scheme (AMIAS), a data analysis method of general applicability in inverse scattering problems. In this framework, the physical characteristics of the radioactivity distribution in the striatum are parametrized and formulated as mathematical”objects” representing the uptake of the radiophar-maceutical in segmented Regions Of Interest (ROIs). Projection data obtained from phantom simulation studies were used to evaluate the efficacy of the method. The resulting AMIAS images are compared to those produced by the Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization (MLEM) and Filtered Back Projection (FBP) techniques and found to be significantly superior.