Constructive and Algorithmic Strategies for a Tri-Modality Molecular Imaging System Integrating CT, SPECT and Optical Imaging

Each imaging modality used in molecular imaging has its own advantages and limitations in image quality, biological specificity, signal sensitivity, etc. A combination of various modalities may be therefore necessary to overcome respective disadvantages and obtain additional information. The state-of-the-art technology of multimodality molecular imaging is to acquire images sequentially. In this dissertation, a unique tri-modality SPECT-CT-Optical small animal imaging system is investigated and further refined towards fully co-registered and fully three-dimensional reconstruction of each involved modality. The following topics are involved: construction and optimization of the system; geometric co-calibration leading to intrisically co-registered image reconstruction; a novel reconstruction algorithm for fluorescence-mediated tomography including prior information from CT and SPECT.