Combined Modalities of Compton Scattering Tomography

The requirement to scope and analyze hidden parts of the human body and the limitations of current imaging technologies is motivating the development of novel approaches. In clinical PET/CT systems, the attenuation and activity maps of the studied body region are recovered from measurements. However, the modeling of Compton scattering enables to obtain the attenuation map through the electron density directly from transmission data, thus obviating the need of a CT scan. In this context, a bimodality imaging approach (gamma-ray transmission/emission imaging) using scattered radiation referred to as Compton scattering tomography (CST) is presented. This concept is modeled by two generalized Radon transforms and proposes to reconstruct the electron density, the attenuation map, and the activity concentration of the studied body region. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and viability of this novel imaging concept. The present approach could be an interesting alternative to current tomographic imaging techniques.