Partial scan and reconstruction for a positron emission tomography system

1. A method for performing a partial scan of a patient using a PET/CT system, the method comprising:

receiving a selection of a region of interest for scanning;

performing a CT scan over a region of interest with the PET/CT system to acquire raw CT data;

reconstructing the raw CT data into one or more CT images;

performing a PET scan with the PET/CT system to acquire raw PET data comprising a plurality of coincidence events;

for each coincidence event, determining a corresponding line-of-response (LOR) for the coincidence event, the determined LORs including LORS passing through the region of interest and LORs not passing through the region of interest; and

reconstructing the raw PET data into one or more PET images of the region of interest using only the coincidence events having corresponding LORs passing through the region of interest.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

acquiring a topogram of a patient's body using the combined PET/CT system; and

presenting the topogram on the operator console to a user,

wherein the selection of the region of interest for scanning is received via the operator console.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

presenting, on the operator console, a series of blocks extending axially along at least one side of the topogram,

wherein each block in the series corresponds to a portion of the topogram; and

wherein the selection of the region of interest comprises a selection of one or more of the blocks.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the selection of the region of interest comprises one or more shapes drawn by a user on one or more portions of the topogram.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

identifying a subset of the PET detectors that are outside the region of interest; and

configuring the PET/CT system such that the subset of PET detectors are disabled during acquisition of the raw PET data.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

receive a selection of a ring difference associated with the PET/CT system; and

configuring the PET/CT system to satisfy the ring difference during the PET scan.

7. A method for performing a partial scan of a patient using a PET/CT system, the method comprising:

receiving a selection of a region of interest for scanning;

performing a CT scan over the region of interest with the PET/CT system to acquire raw CT data;

reconstructing the raw CT data into one or more CT images;

identifying, based on the one or more CT images, one or more radial offset values and a restricted ring difference describing the region of interest in a coordinate space of the PET/CT system;

performing a PET scan with the PET/CT system to acquire raw PET data; and

reconstructing one or more PET images from the raw PET data limited to the region of interest to yield.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

acquiring a topogram of a patient's body using the combined PET/CT system; and

presenting the topogram on the operator console to a user,

wherein the selection of the region of interest for scanning is received via the operator console.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

presenting, on the operator console, a series of blocks extending axially along at least one side of the topogram,

wherein each block in the series corresponds to a portion of the topogram; and

wherein the selection of the region of interest comprises a selection of one or more of the blocks.

10. The method of claim 7 wherein reconstructing the one or more PET images comprises applying a listmode reconstruction directly to the raw PET data.

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein reconstructing the one or more PET images comprises:

creating a sinogram limited to the region of interest by histogramming the raw PET data using the radial offset values and the restricted ring difference; and

reconstructing the sinogram into the PET images.

12. A method for performing a partial scan of a patient using a PET/CT system, the method comprising:

receiving a selection of a region of interest for scanning;

performing a CT scan over the region of interest with the PET/CT system to acquire raw CT data;

reconstructing the raw CT data into one or more CT images;

performing a PET scan with the PET/CT system to acquire raw PET data comprising a plurality of coincidence events;

for each coincidence event, determining a corresponding line-of-response (LOR) for the coincidence event, the determined LORs including LORs which pass through the region of interest and LORs which do not pass through the region of interest, and

performing a reconstruction of the raw PET data using only the coincidence events having corresponding LORS which pass through the region of interest to yield one or more PET images.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:

acquiring a topogram of a patient's body using the combined PET/CT system; and

presenting the topogram on the operator console to a user,

wherein the selection of the region of interest for scanning is received via the operator console.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:

presenting, on the operator console, a series of blocks extending axially along at least one side of the topogram,

wherein each block in the series corresponds to a portion of the topogram; and

wherein the selection of the region of interest comprises a selection of one or more of the blocks.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein the reconstruction is a listmode reconstruction directly applied to the raw PET data.

16. The method of claim 12 , wherein the reconstruction is performed by:

creating a sinogram limited to the region of interest by histogramming the raw PET data using the radial offset values and the restricted ring difference; and

reconstructing the sinogram into the PET images.

17. A system for performing a partial scan of a patient, the system comprising:

one or more operator consoles configured to receive a selection of a region of interest for scanning;

a computed tomography (CT) subsystem configured to:

perform a CT scan over & the region of interest to acquire raw CT data, and

reconstruct the raw CT data into one or more CT images; and

a Positron-Emission Tomography (PET) subsystem comprising PET detectors and configured to:

identify a subset of the PET detector that are outside the region of interest,

disable the identified PET detectors,

while the identified PET detectors are disabled, perform a PET scan limited to the region of interest to acquire raw PET data, and

reconstruct the raw PET data into one or more PET images of the region of interest.

18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the hardware elements comprise one or more processors and the PET subsystem is configured to:

for each coincidence event of the raw PET data, determine a corresponding line-of-response (LORs);

configure the one or more processors to process only the coincidence events having corresponding LORs passing through the region of interest.