FIELD: physics. ^ SUBSTANCE: method and apparatus are provided for reconstructing list mode data acquired during a positron emission tomography scan of an object, the data including information indicative of a plurality of detected positron annihilation events. Detected events occurring in a region of interest are identified; the identified events are reconstructed using an iterative reconstruction technique which includes a ray tracing operation to generate volumetric data indicative of the region of interest, wherein the ray tracing operation traces only image matrix elements located in the region of interest; and a human readable image indicative of the volumetric data is generated. An image mask and a projection mask are defined correlating to the region of interest; image matrix elements located in the region of interest are determined by using the image mask; and detected events occurring in a region of interest are identified by applying the projection mask. ^ EFFECT: faster reconstruction of image processing. ^ 21 cl, 6 dwg
PROCESSING POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY IMAGES USING ANATOMIC LIST MODE MASK