Patent ID: 8723128

Claim:
A nuclear medicine imaging apparatus, comprising: a detector in which a plurality of detector modules are arranged to each include a plurality of photodetectors that output, as analog data, a counting result of light that is derived from gamma rays released from positron emitting radionuclides that are administered to a subject; a converter configured to convert the analog data output by each of the photodetectors to digital data; a counting information collecting unit configured to collect, from the digital data output by the converter in accordance with each of the photodetectors, a detection position of the gamma rays on the detector, an energy value of the gamma rays at a time of the gamma rays incident on the detector, and a detection time at which the detector detects the gamma rays, as the counting result of the detector; a counting information storage unit configured to store therein the counting result collected by the counting information collecting unit in association with digital data that is used for collecting the counting result; a coincidence counting information generating unit configured to generate coincidence counting information by searching for a combination of counting information in which a pair of gamma rays released from the positron emitting radionuclides are coincidentally counted, based on the energy value and the detection time in the counting information stored in the counting information storage unit; a coincidence counting information storage unit configured to store the coincidence counting information generated by the coincidence counting information generating unit; an image reconstructing unit configured to reconstruct a nuclear medicine image based on the coincidence counting information stored in the coincidence counting information storage unit; a time correction data storage unit configured to store time correction data for correcting the detection time of the gamma rays in accordance with each of the photodetectors included in the detector; and a controlling unit configured to control the coincidence counting information generating unit to generate new coincidence counting information by correcting the detection time of the gamma rays in digital data associated with each piece of the counting information stored in the counting information storage unit by use of the time correction data stored in the time correction data storage unit, and to control the image reconstructing unit to reconstruct a new nuclear medicine image based on the new coincidence counting information generated by the coincidence counting information generating unit.