COSINE: Institute of Medical Engineering

COSINE

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a medical imaging technique that uses radioactive tracers to diagnose a large variety of diseases, monitor therapy and support biomedical research. PET images reveal metabolic activity and help identify abnormal tissue such as tumours. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the "COmpton Scatter based Imaging for Nuclear Emissions" (COSINE) project aims to exploit Compton scattering to increase PET sensitivity and enable novel applications. Sensitivity enhancement translates into better image quality or reduced radiation dose for the patient. COSINE includes the development of advanced algorithms and models grounded in solid mathematical and physical foundations, specifically designed to incorporate Compton scattering events into dedicated image reconstruction frameworks. These models will be evaluated using both Monte Carlo simulations and experimental PET data.

Different Compton-scatter mediated PET events modeled within the project

Grants

The project is financially supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2024 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 10120706

Publications

[ 2026 ]

2026[ to top ]

Roser, J., Vo, H., Kantorek, R., Seeger, S. and Rafecas, M.: Analytical modeling of inter-crystal scattering in PET with energy information, 2026.
- [ BibTeX ]
- [ URL ]
@inproceedings{roser2026analytical, author = {Roser, Jorge and Vo, Hong and Kantorek, Rebecca and Seeger, Steven and Rafecas, Magdalena}, booktitle = {FTMI-TBPET-PSMR 2026 Valencia}, keywords = {pet}, title = {Analytical modeling of inter-crystal scattering in PET with energy information}, year = 2026 }
Roser, J., Vo, H. P., Kantorek, R., Seeger, S. and Rafecas, M.: Inclusion of Inter-crystal Scattering in PET: Analytical Models and Dedicated Reconstruction, IEEE Transactions on Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences, 1–1, 2026, DOI: 10.1109/TRPMS.2026.3691192.
- [ BibTeX ]
@article{11511820, abstract = {Inter-crystal scattering (ICS) in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is commonly regarded as a degradation effect that might compromise the image spatial resolution. In parallel, the inclusion of ICS events has also been recognized as a potential approach to increase PET sensitivity, which could be especially beneficial in scenarios where the latter is a limiting factor, such as very small animal imaging. Several methods for the recovery of ICS events have been proposed, many of which aim to locate the first interaction, i.e., the Compton scattering site, usually limited by their success rate, computational burden or data and training dependency. Conversely, this work proposes a physics-based model for ICS events, leading to analytical expressions of the sensitivity image and the system matrix (required by statistical reconstruction algorithms), without the need to identify the original line of response. After validating the model, the work shows how ICS events can be integrated into a joint image reconstruction algorithm (based on list-mode MLEM) together with conventional PET events, for which dedicated analytical models are also developed. To assess the performance of the proposed approach, Monte-Carlo simulated and experimental data of an image quality phantom were obtained with the MERMAID small-fish PET scanner prototype. Both simulation and experimental results indicate that, while slightly decreasing the recovery coefficient values, the inclusion of ICS clearly reduces statistical noise and improves uniformity.}, author = {Roser, Jorge and Vo, Hong Phuc and Kantorek, Rebecca and Seeger, Steven and Rafecas, Magdalena}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences}, keywords = {pet}, pages = {1-1}, title = {Inclusion of Inter-crystal Scattering in PET: Analytical Models and Dedicated Reconstruction}, year = 2026 }