Dead time correction in positron emission tomograph

The count rate linearity and dead time count losses were evaluated in Positologica III, a wholebody multislice positron emission tomograph, using several kinds of phantoms. A wide variation was observed in the relationship between count loss and true coincidence count rate depending on the source distribution, and the dead time correction using the count rate itself was unsuccessful. Since most count losses of this PET scanner occur when the single photon signals were encoded at the circuitry, we measured the single rate to correct for the count loss. This method enabled dead time correction independent of the distribution of source and attenuation material. (author)