Enhancing Positronium Lifetime Imaging through Two-Component Reconstruction in Time-of-Flight Positron Emission Tomography

TL;DR

This paper introduces a two-component reconstruction model for Positronium Lifetime Imaging in TOF PET, improving tissue micro-environment assessment for better disease diagnosis.

Contribution

It presents a novel two-component model that incorporates both ortho- and para-positronium decays, enhancing imaging accuracy over existing single-component models.

Findings

The two-component model outperforms single-component models in simulations.

Enhanced tissue micro-environment representation in PET imaging.

Potential for more accurate disease diagnosis using PLI.

Abstract

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a crucial tool in medical imaging, particularly for diagnosing diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's. The advent of Positronium Lifetime Imaging (PLI) has opened new avenues for assessing the tissue micro-environment, which is vital for early-stage disease detection. In this study, we introduce a two-component reconstruction model for PLI in Time-of-Flight (TOF) PET, incorporating both ortho-positronium and para-positronium decays. Our model enhances the accuracy of positronium imaging by providing a more detailed representation of the tissue environment. We conducted simulation studies to evaluate the performance of our model and compared it with existing single-component models. The results demonstrate the superiority of the two-component model in capturing the intricacies of the tissue micro-environment, thus paving the way for more precise and informative PET diagnostics.