Patent ID: 7888632
Filing Date: 2011-02-15
Classification: G01R

Abstract:
1. A method for co-registering attenuation data of MR coils in a MR/PET imaging system with PET emission data, comprising: (a) computing a likelihood of PET emission data on a grid in a parameter space based on an algorithm, wherein the algorithm defines L(λ, μbody, μcoils{p}) as a log-likelihood of measured PET data, where λ is an emitter distribution (image), μbody is a known linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) distribution of a patient from MR, μcoils is a LAC map of said MR coils, and {p} is a set of parameters governing the position of each coil; (b) assuming a μcoils{p}; (c) reconstructing λ, and forward projecting λ based on an assumed μcoils{p} and computing L based on said reconstruction and forward projection; (d) adjusting position parameters of {p} assumed in step (b); and (e) repeating steps (c) and (d) until the likelihood of emission data based on the computed L is maximized.