Numerical observer study of lesion detectability for a long axial field-of-view whole-body PET imager using the PennPET Explorer.

Numerical observer study of lesion detectability for a long axial field-of-view whole-body PET imager using the PennPET Explorer. Phys Med Biol. 2019 Dec 09;: Authors: Viswanath V, Daube-Witherspoon ME, Karp JS, Surti S Abstract This work uses lesion detectability to characterize the performance of long axial field of view (AFOV) PET scanners which have increased sensitivity compared to clinical scanners. Studies were performed using the PennPET Explorer, a 70-cm long AFOV scanner built at the University of Pennsylvania, for small lesions distributed in a uniform water-filled cylinder (simulations and measurements), an anthropomorphic torso phantom (measurement), and a human subject (measurement). The lesion localization and detection task was quantified numerically using a generalized scan statistics methodology. Detectability was studied as a function of background activity distribution, scan duration for a single bed position, and axial location of the lesions. For the cylindrical phantom, the areas under the localization receiver operating curve (ALROCs) of lesions placed at various axial locations in the scanner were greater than 0.8 - a value considered to be clinically acceptable (i.e., 80% probability of detecting lesion) - for scan times of 60 s or longer for standard-of-care (SoC) clinical dose levels. 10-mm diameter lesions placed in the anthropomorphic phantom and human subject resulted in ALROCs of 0.8 or greater for sca...
Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology - Category: Physics Authors: Tags: Phys Med Biol Source Type: research