An efficient simulator for pinhole imaging of PET isotopes

Today, small-animal multi-pinhole single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) can reach sub-half-millimeter image resolution. Recently we have shown that dedicated multi-pinhole collimators can also image PET tracers at sub-mm level. Simulations play a vital role in the design and optimization of such collimators. Here we propose and validate an efficient simulator that models the whole imaging chain from emitted positron to detector signal. This analytical simulator for pinhole positron emission computed tomography (ASPECT) combines analytical models for pinhole and detector response with Monte Carlo (MC)-generated kernels for positron range. Accuracy of ASPECT was validated by means of a MC simulator (MCS) that uses a kernel-based step for detector response with an angle-dependent detector kernel based on experiments. Digital phantom simulations with ASPECT and MCS converge to almost identical images. However, ASPECT converges to an equal image noise level three to four orders of magnitude faster than MCS. We conclude that ASPECT could serve as a practical tool in collimator design and iterative image reconstruction for novel multi-pinhole PET.