Positron-based attenuation correction for Positron Emission Tomography data using MCNP6 code

Abstract This paper presents the Monte Carlo simulation of the attenuation correction for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) data using MCNP6 code. Two attenuation correction maps have been generated, one for correcting the attenuation effect in a homogeneous phantom, which is a cylindrical volume of water and the other for correcting the attenuation effect in a heterogeneous phantom, which is a cylindrical volume of water within which, there are two small cylinders of bone-equivalent materials. These maps are derived from the data acquired as a result of transmission scans using a positron-emitting rod source. The attenuation map generated using this method does not need to be scaled because it is directly built for an energy of 511 keV. For each phantom, three types of simulations are done, one to estimate the radiotracer distribution in the phantom (emission scan) and two to estimate the distribution of attenuation coefficients in this phantom (transmission scans), the first with a blank field of view (FOV) and the second when the phantom exists in the FOV. From the transmission scans data, the attenuation map for each phantom is derived and after that it has been applied to the corresponding emission scan data during PET image reconstruction process to obtain the attenuation-corrected image. The images of the radiotracer distribution in each phantom reached in this study illustrate the quantitative and qualitative improvements in the image quality after attenuation correction than that before the attenuation correction.