3D tomographic imaging with the γ-eye planar scintigraphic gamma camera

γ-eye is a desktop planar scintigraphic gamma camera (100 mm × 50 mm field of view) designed by BET Solutions as an affordable tool for dynamic, whole body, small-animal imaging. This investigation tests the viability of using γ-eye for the collection of tomographic data for 3D SPECT reconstruction. Two software packages, QSPECT and STIR (software for tomographic image reconstruction), have been compared. Reconstructions have been performed using QSPECT's implementation of the OSEM algorithm and STIR's OSMAPOSL (Ordered Subset Maximum A Posteriori One Step Late) and OSSPS (Ordered Subsets Separable Paraboloidal Surrogate) algorithms. Reconstructed images of phantom and mouse data have been assessed in terms of spatial resolution, sensitivity to varying activity levels and uniformity. The effect of varying the number of iterations, the voxel size (1.25 mm default voxel size reduced to 0.625 mm and 0.3125 mm), the point spread function correction and the weight of prior terms were explored. While QSPECT demonstrated faster reconstructions, STIR outperformed it in terms of resolution (as low as 1 mm versus 3 mm), particularly when smaller voxel sizes were used, and in terms of uniformity, particularly when prior terms were used. Little difference in terms of sensitivity was seen throughout.