A novel approach for quantitative harmonization in PET.

A novel approach for quantitative harmonization in PET.
Phys Med Biol. 2018 May 04;63(9):095019
Authors: Namías M, Bradshaw T, Menezes VO, Machado MAD, Jeraj R
Abstract
Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging allows for measurement of activity concentrations of a given radiotracer in vivo. The quantitative capabilities of PET imaging are particularly important in the context of monitoring response to treatment, where quantitative changes in tracer uptake could be used as a biomarker of treatment response. Reconstruction algorithms and settings have a significant impact on PET quantification. In this work we introduce a novel harmonization methodology requiring only a simple cylindrical phantom and show that it can match the performance of more complex harmonization approaches based on phantoms with spherical inserts. Resolution and noise measurements from cylindrical phantoms are used to simulate the spherical inserts from NEMA image quality phantoms. An optimization algorithm was used to find the optimal smoothing filters for the simulated NEMA phantom images to identify those that best harmonized the PET scanners. Our methodology was tested on seven different PET models from two manufacturers installed at five institutions. Our methodology is able to predict contrast recovery coefficients (CRCs) from NEMA phantoms with errors within  ±5.2% for CRCmax and  ±3.7% for CRCmean (limits of agreement  =  95%). After ...

Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology - May 4, 2018 Category: Physics Authors: Namías M, Bradshaw T, Menezes VO, Machado MAD, Jeraj R Tags: Phys Med Biol Source Type: research