A normalization technique for multispectral acquisition in positron emission tomography

A novel normalization technique for multispectral acquisition (MSA) in positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is described. MSA data are affected by spectral nonuniformity due to variations in detector characteristics. As with conventional methods, the normalization must preserve counts as it reduces nonuniformity but spectral shapes must be restored and symmetry distortions between mirror windows must be compensated. The proposed method achieves these goals by averaging each window pair over all detectors and by balancing mirror windows. The method was tested with a variety of spectral distortions and was found to be successful in restoring data uniformity. It is concluded that MSA PET imaging is possible with relatively nonuniform detector response, but with stable detector characteristics are essential.<>