The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of the collimator detector response (CDR) recovery and the effective scatter source estimation (ESSE) method which is the scatter correction method built into the ordered subsets expectation maximization (OSEM) method.
Method: The SPECT quality evaluation phantom and the anthropomorphic torso phantom were used in this study, and image contrast and uniformity were evaluated. The effect of each image correction method on the quantification of absolute radioactivity was also assessed.
Results and conclusion: Image contrast and uniformity were improved with the combination of the CDR recovery and triple energy window (TEW) method or the ESSE method. The combination of the CDR recovery and the ESSE method was the best method for the estimation of absolute radioactivity. Image quality of the SPECT is improved by the combination of CDR recovery and scatter correction in addition to attenuation correction. CDR recovery in addition to attenuation and scatter correction is also useful for the quantification of absolute radioactivity.