An accurate method for correction of head movement in PET

A method is presented to correct positron emission tomography (PET) data for head motion during data acquisition. The method is based on simultaneous acquisition of PET data in list mode and monitoring of the patient's head movements with a motion tracking system. According to the measured head motion, the line of response (LOR) of each single detected PET event is spatially transformed, resulting in a spatially fully corrected data set. The basic algorithm for spatial transformation of LORs is based on a number of assumptions which can lead to spatial artifacts and quantitative inaccuracies in the resulting images. These deficiencies are discussed, demonstrated and methods for improvement are presented. Using different kinds of phantoms the validity and accuracy of the correction method is tested and its applicability to human studies is demonstrated as well.