Spatial resolution is dependent on image content for SPECT with iterative reconstruction incorporating distance dependent resolution (DDR) correction.

The aim of this study is to determine the dependence of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) spatial resolution on the content of images for iterative reconstruction with distance dependent resolution (DDR) correction. An experiment was performed using a perturbation technique to measure change in resolution of line sources in simple and complex images with iterative reconstruction with increasing iteration. Projections of the line sources were reconstructed alone and again after the addition of projections of a uniform flood or a complex phantom. An alternative experiment used images of a realistic brain phantom and evaluated an effective spatial resolution by matching the images to the digital version of the phantom convolved with 3D Gaussian kernels. The experiments were performed using ordered subset expectation maximisation iterative reconstruction with and without the use of DDR correction. The results show a significant difference in reconstructed resolution between images of line sources depending on the content of the added image. The full width at half maximum of images of a line source reconstructed using DDR correction increased by 20-30 % when the added image was complex. Without DDR this difference was much smaller and disappeared with increasing iteration. Reported SPECT resolution should be taken as indicative only with regard to clinical imaging if the measurement is made using a point or line source alone and an iterative reconstruction algorithm is used.