A Monte Carlo investigation of dual-energy-window scatter correction for volume-of-interest quantification in 99Tcm SPECT

Abstract

Using Monte Carlo simulation of 99Tcm single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT), the authors investigate the effects of tissue-background activity, tumour location, patient size, uncertainty of energy windows, and definition of tumour region on the accuracy of quantification. The dual-energy-window method of correction for Compton scattering is employed and the multiplier which yields correct activity for the volume-of-interest (VOI) as a whole calculated. The model is usually a sphere containing radioactive water located within a cylinder filled with a more dilute solution of radioactivity. Two simulation codes are employed. Reconstruction is by ML-EM algorithm with attenuation compensation. The scatter multiplier depends only slightly on the sphere location or the cylinder diameter. It also depends little on whether correction is before or after reconstruction. At low background level, it changes with VOI size, but not at higher background. For a geometrical VOI, it is 1.25 at zero background, decreases sharply to 0.56 for equal concentrations, and is 0.44 when the background concentration is very large. Quantification is accurate (less than 9% error) if the test background is reasonably close to that used in setting the universal scatter-multiplier value, or if the rest backgrounds are always large and so is the universal-value background, but not if the test backgrounds cover a large range of values including zero. Results largely agree with those from experiment after the experimental data with background is re-evaluated with prejudice.