DEAD PIXEL CORRECTION FOR DIGITAL PET RECONSTRUCTION

A PET detector array (8) comprising detector pixels acquires PET detection counts along lines of response (LORs). The counts are reconstructed to generate a reconstructed PET image (36, 46). The reconstructing is corrected for missing LORs which are missing due to dead detector pixels of the PET detector array. The correction may be by estimating counts along the missing LORs (60) by interpolating counts along LORs (66) neighboring the missing LORs. The interpolation may be iterative to handle contiguous groups of missing detector pixels. The correction may be by computing a sensitivity matrix having matrix elements corresponding to image elements (80, 82) of the reconstructed PET image. In this case, each matrix element is computed as a summation over all LORs intersecting the corresponding image element excepting the missing LORs. The computed sensitivity matrix is used in the reconstructing.