Particle Path Simulation for Single Cell Tracking in Positron Emission Tomography

Ziel/Aim: This work aims to simulate cell paths in the human body based on the organ and blood vessel structure of the XCAT phantom for single cell PET simulations.

Methodik/Methods: The segmented blood vessels extracted from XCAT are transformed into a node network structure [1]. Nodes are placed along the central line of a blood vessel and store information about: (1) its spatial coordinates, (2) which nodes are adjacent in the direction of blood flow, (3) the speed at which movement of a cell to the next node occurs and (4) the diameter of the blood vessel. At branches of blood vessels, where multiple next nodes are available, the cell's migration destination is determined probabilistically. The probabilities can be obtained from measured or simulated concentration distributions of the cells in the body. By radioactively labeling the cells, their paths are implemented into Monte Carlo simulations of a PET scanner as a moving source [2]. This simulated data can serve as ground truth for new reconstruction algorithms [3].

Ergebnisse/Results: As a proof-of-concept, a cell path is simulated from injection in the left arm vein to the heart, lung, gastrointestinal tract and ending in the liver. Using this path, a GATE PET simulation is carried out and the resulting PET data is dynamically reconstructed using an EM based reconstruction with optimal transport based regularisation.

Schlussfolgerungen/Conclusions: Our presented model based on the XCAT phantom offers a promising approach to simulate realistic cell pathways within the body for single cell tracking PET.

• Literatur/References

• 1 Segars W.P., Sturgeon G., Mendonca S., Grimes J., Tsui B.M.W.. Med. Phys. 2010; 37: 4902-4915 DOI: 10.1118/1.3480985.
• 2 Jan S., Santin G., Strul D.. et al. Phys Med Biol. 2004; 49 (19) 4543-4561 DOI: 10.1088/0031-9155/49/19/007.
• 3 Schmitzer B., Schäfers K.P., Wirth B.. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging 2019; 39: 1626-1635

Publication History

Article published online:
25 March 2024