We are conducting a study that requires us to acquire a number of images over a 2-hour period of time. Each acquisition lasts for 10 minutes and technetium-99m is used as the radiotracer. The images are recorded in frame mode with a matrix size of 128 × 128. In order to get satisfactory image quality, we need at least 2 million counts for each image.
(a) In order for the last image to have enough counts, what is the total count in the first minute of the study?
(b) What is the SNR per pixel as a function of the image number?
(c) Suppose there is a tumor with 10% contrast, what is the approximate count for the first image so that the tumor has a 5 dB local signal-tonoise ratio in the last image.
