Articles

Quantitative implications of the updated EARL 2019 PET–CT performance standards

Recently, updated EARL specifications (EARL2) have been developed and announced. This study aims at investigating the impact of the EARL2 specifications on the quantitative reads of clinical PET–CT studies and...

Authors: Andres Kaalep, Coreline N. Burggraaff, Simone Pieplenbosch, Eline E. Verwer, Terez Sera, Josee Zijlstra, Otto S. Hoekstra, Daniela E. Oprea-Lager and Ronald Boellaard

Spill-in counts in the quantification of ¹⁸F-florbetapir on Aβ-negative subjects: the effect of including white matter in the reference region

We aim to provide a systematic study of the impact of white matter (WM) spill-in on the calculation of standardized uptake value ratios (SUVRs) on Aβ-negative subjects, and we study the effect of including WM ...

Authors: Francisco Javier López-González, Alexis Moscoso, Nikos Efthimiou, Anxo Fernández-Ferreiro, Manuel Piñeiro-Fiel, Stephen J. Archibald, Pablo Aguiar and Jesús Silva-Rodríguez

Reproducibility of compartmental modelling of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT to evaluate lung inflammation

Compartmental modelling is an established method of quantifying ¹⁸F-FDG uptake; however, only recently has it been applied to evaluate pulmonary inflammation. Implementation of compartmental models remains challe...

Authors: Laurence D. Vass, Sarah Lee, Frederick J. Wilson, Marie Fisk, Joseph Cheriyan and Ian Wilkinson

Development of a blood sample detector for multi-tracer positron emission tomography using gamma spectroscopy

Multi-tracer positron emission tomography (PET) imaging can be accomplished by applying multi-tracer compartment modeling. Recently, a method has been proposed in which the arterial input functions (AIFs) of t...

Authors: Carlos Velasco, Adriana Mota-Cobián, Jesús Mateo and Samuel España

A Nordic survey of CT doses in hybrid PET/CT and SPECT/CT examinations

Computed tomography (CT) scans are routinely performed in positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) examinations globally, yet few surveys have been conducted to...

Authors: Natalie A. Bebbington, Bryan T. Haddock, Henrik Bertilsson, Eero Hippeläinen, Ellen M. Husby, Virpi I. Tunninen and Marcus Söderberg

Comparison of scandium-44 g with other PET radionuclides in pre-clinical PET phantom imaging

The decay characteristics of radionuclides in PET studies can impact image reconstruction. ^44gSc has been the topic of recent research due to potential theranostic applications and is a promising radiometal for P...

Authors: Simon Ferguson, Hans-Sonke Jans, Melinda Wuest, Terence Riauka and Frank Wuest

Noise reduction using a Bayesian penalized-likelihood reconstruction algorithm on a time-of-flight PET-CT scanner

Q.Clear is a block sequential regularized expectation maximization (BSREM) penalized-likelihood reconstruction algorithm for PET. It tries to improve image quality by controlling noise amplification during ima...

Authors: Paulo R. R. V. Caribé, M. Koole, Yves D’Asseler, B. Van Den Broeck and S. Vandenberghe

Reduction of the fluorine-18-labeled fluorodeoxyglucose dose for clinically dedicated breast positron emission tomography

To determine the clinically acceptable level of reduction in the injected fluorine-18 (¹⁸F)-labeled fluorodeoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) dose in dedicated breast positron emission tomography (dbPET).

Authors: Yoko Satoh, Tetsuro Sekine, Yoshie Omiya, Hiroshi Onishi and Utaroh Motosugi

Significant artefactual noise in ⁹⁰Y TOF-PET imaging of low specific activity phantoms arises despite increased acquisition time

Volumes of usual PET phantoms are about four to sixfold that of a human liver. In order to avoid count rate saturation and handling of very high ⁹⁰Y activity, reported TOF-PET phantom studies are performed using ...

Authors: Michel Hesse and Stephan Walrand

Multicentre quantitative ⁶⁸Ga PET/CT performance harmonisation

Performance standards for quantitative ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT studies are provided by the EANM Research Ltd. (EARL) to enable comparability of quantitative PET in multicentre studies. Yet, such specifications are not ava...

Authors: Daphne M. V. Huizing, Daniëlle Koopman, Jorn A. van Dalen, Martin Gotthardt, Ronald Boellaard, Terez Sera, Michiel Sinaasappel, Marcel P. M. Stokkel and Berlinda J. de Wit-van der Veen

Algorithms for joint activity–attenuation estimation from positron emission tomography scatter

Attenuation correction in positron emission tomography remains challenging in the absence of measured transmission data. Scattered emission data may contribute missing information, but quantitative scatter-to-...

Authors: Yannick Berker, Volkmar Schulz and Joel S. Karp

Performance evaluation of Cerenkov luminescence imaging: a comparison of ⁶⁸Ga with ¹⁸F

Cerenkov Luminescence Imaging (CLI) is an emerging technology for intraoperative margin assessment. Previous research only evaluated radionuclide 18-Fluorine (¹⁸F); however, for future applications in prostate ca...

Authors: J. olde Heuvel, B. J. de Wit-van der Veen, K. N. Vyas, D. S. Tuch, M. R. Grootendorst, M. P. M. Stokkel and C. H. Slump

Image quality and detectability in Siemens Biograph PET/MRI and PET/CT systems—a phantom study

The technology of modern positron emission tomography (PET) systems continuously improving, and with it the possibility to detect smaller lesions. Since first introduced in 2010, the number of hybrid PET/magne...

Authors: Silje Kjærnes Øen, Lars Birger Aasheim, Live Eikenes and Anna Maria Karlberg

Implementation of cylindrical PET scanners with block detector geometry in STIR

Software for Tomographic Image Reconstruction (STIR) is an open-source library for PET and SPECT image reconstruction, implementing iterative reconstruction as well as 2D- and 3D-filtered back projection. Quan...

Authors: Parisa Khateri, Jannis Fischer, Werner Lustermann, Charalampos Tsoumpas and Günther Dissertori

Accelerated SPECT image reconstruction with FBP and an image enhancement convolutional neural network

Monte Carlo-based iterative reconstruction to correct for photon scatter and collimator effects has been proven to be superior over analytical correction schemes in single-photon emission computed tomography (...

Authors: Martijn M. A. Dietze, Woutjan Branderhorst, Britt Kunnen, Max A. Viergever and Hugo W. A. M. de Jong

Quantitative measurement of ²¹⁹Rn radioactivity in exhaled breath from patients with bone metastasis of castration-resistant prostate cancer treated with ²²³RaCl₂

The α-emitting radionuclide radium-223 (²²³Ra) is widely used for the treatment of bone metastasis in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer. However, ²²³Ra decays into radon-219 (²¹⁹Rn) which is a no...

Authors: Kazuhiro Ooe, Tadashi Watabe, Takashi Kamiya, Takashi Yoshimura, Makoto Hosono, Atsushi Shinohara and Jun Hatazawa

Imaging cardiac sympathetic innervation with MIBG: linear conversion of the heart-to-mediastinum ratio between different collimators

The heart-to-mediastinum (H/M) ratio is a commonly used parameter to measure cardiac I-123 metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) uptake. Since the H/M ratio is substantially influenced by the collimator type, we inve...

Authors: Joachim Brumberg, Ganna Blazhenets, Nils Schröter, Lars Frings, Wolfgang H. Jost, Constantin Lapa and Philipp T. Meyer

NEMA NU 2–2007 performance characteristics of GE Signa integrated PET/MR for different PET isotopes

Fully integrated PET/MR systems are being used frequently in clinical research and routine. National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) characterization of these systems is generally done with ¹⁸F which ...

Authors: Paulo R. R. V. Caribé, M. Koole, Yves D’Asseler, Timothy W. Deller, K. Van Laere and S. Vandenberghe

Augmenting camera images with gamma detector data

Squamous cell carcinoma in the head and neck region is one of the most widespread cancers with high morbidity. Classic treatment comprises the complete removal of the lymphatics together with the cancerous tis...

Authors: Peter A. von Niederhäusern, Simon Pezold, Uri Nahum, Carlo Seppi, Guillaume Nicolas, Michael Rissi, Stephan K. Haerle and Philippe C. Cattin

In vivo gadolinium nanoparticle quantification with SPECT/CT

Gadolinium nanoparticles (Gd-NP) combined with radiotherapy are investigated for radiation dose enhancement in radiotherapy treatment. Indeed, NPs concentrated in a tumor could enhance its radiosensitization. ...

Authors: Olga Kochebina, Adrien Halty, Jacqueline Taleb, David Kryza, Marc Janier, Alexandre Bani Sadr, Thomas Baudier, Simon Rit and David Sarrut

Performance characteristics of silicon photomultiplier based 15-cm AFOV TOF PET/CT

This paper describes the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) system performance of the Discovery MI 3-ring PET/CT (GE Healthcare) installed in Bruges, Belgium. This time-of-flight (TOF) PET ca...

Authors: Delphine Vandendriessche, Jorge Uribe, Hugo Bertin and Frank De Geeter

Radiation precautions for inpatient and outpatient ¹⁷⁷Lu-DOTATATE peptide receptor radionuclide therapy of neuroendocrine tumours

¹⁷⁷Lu-DOTATATE peptide receptor radionuclide therapy is administered to patients on an inpatient and outpatient basis for the treatment of well-differentiated, metastatic neuroendocrine tumours. Following adminis...

Authors: D. Levart, E. Kalogianni, B. Corcoran, N. Mulholland and G. Vivian

Endorsement of International Consensus Radiochemistry Nomenclature Guidelines

Authors: Philip Elsinga, Angelika Bischof Delaloye, Arturo Chiti, Stefaan Vandenberghe, Francesco Giammarile and Ignasi Carrio

Impact of penalizing factor in a block-sequential regularized expectation maximization reconstruction algorithm for ¹⁸F-fluorocholine PET-CT regarding image quality and interpretation

Recently, the block-sequential regularized expectation maximization (BSREM) reconstruction algorithm was commercially introduced (Q.Clear, GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, WI, USA). However, the combination of noise-...

Authors: Mimmi Bjöersdorff, Jenny Oddstig, Nina Karindotter-Borgendahl, Helén Almquist, Sophia Zackrisson, David Minarik and Elin Trägårdh

Quantitative SPECT: the time is now

Quantification is one of the key benefits of nuclear medicine imaging. Recently, driven by the demand for post radionuclide therapy imaging, quantitative SPECT has moved from relative and semiquantitative meas...

Authors: John Dickson, James Ross and Stefan Vöö

Radiation dosimetry of [⁶⁸Ga]PSMA-11 in low-risk prostate cancer patients

⁶⁸Ga-labeled Glu-NH-CO-NH-Lys(Ahx)-HBED-CC ([⁶⁸Ga]PSMA-11) has been increasingly used to image prostate cancer using positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) both during diagnosis and treatment...

Authors: Kristina Sandgren, Lennart Johansson, Jan Axelsson, Joakim Jonsson, Mattias Ögren, Margareta Ögren, Martin Andersson, Sara Strandberg, Tufve Nyholm, Katrine Riklund and Anders Widmark

Real-time data-driven motion correction in PET

PET imaging has been, and continues to be, an evolving diagnostic technology. In recent years, the modernizing digital landscape has opened new opportunities for data-driven innovation. One such facet has been...

Authors: Adam Kesner, C. Ross Schmidtlein and Claudia Kuntner

Characterisation of the attenuation properties of 3D-printed tungsten for use in gamma camera collimation

The aim of this work was to characterise the attenuation properties of 3D-printed tungsten and to assess the feasibility for its use in gamma camera collimator manufacture.

Authors: Jonathan I. Gear, Jan Taprogge, Owen White and Glenn D. Flux

Feasibility and accuracy of single time point imaging for renal dosimetry following ¹⁷⁷Lu-DOTATATE (‘Lutate’) therapy

This study aims to assess both feasibility and accuracy of renal dosimetry imaging protocols in patients receiving Lutate therapy for neuroendocrine tumours (NETs), when data acquisition over multiple days is ...

Authors: Kathy P. Willowson, Enid Eslick, Hyunju Ryu, Aurora Poon, Elizabeth J. Bernard and Dale L. Bailey

System evaluation of automated production and inhalation of ¹⁵O-labeled gaseous radiopharmaceuticals for the rapid ¹⁵O-oxygen PET examinations

¹⁵O-oxygen inhalation PET is unique in its ability to provide fundamental information regarding cerebral hemodynamics and energy metabolism in man. However, the use of ¹⁵O-oxygen has been limited in a clinical en...

Authors: Satoshi Iguchi, Tetsuaki Moriguchi, Makoto Yamazaki, Yuki Hori, Kazuhiro Koshino, Kazunori Toyoda, Jarmo Teuho, Saeka Shimochi, Yusuke Terakawa, Tetsuya Fukuda, Jun C. Takahashi, Jyoji Nakagawara, Shigehiko Kanaya and Hidehiro Iida

Impact of different approaches to calculation of treatment activities on achieved doses in radioiodine therapy of benign thyroid diseases

Radioiodine has been used for the treatment of benign thyroid diseases for over 70 years. However, internationally, there is no common standard for pretherapeutic dosimetry to optimally define the individual t...

Authors: Jochen Hammes, Lutz van Heek, Melanie Hohberg, Manuel Reifegerst, Simone Stockter, Markus Dietlein, Markus Wild, Alexander Drzezga, Matthias Schmidt and Carsten Kobe

Predictive power of the post-treatment scans after the initial or first two courses of [¹⁷⁷Lu]-DOTA-TATE

The aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive power of the absorbed dose to kidneys after the first course of treatment with [¹⁷⁷Lu]-DOTA-TATE for neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) on the cumulative kidney abso...

Authors: Alexandre Chicheportiche, Simona Grozinsky-Glasberg, David J. Gross, Yodphat Krausz, Asher Salmon, Amichay Meirovitz, Nanette Freedman and Jeremy Godefroy

Impact of PET reconstruction protocols on quantification of lesions that fulfil the PERCIST lesion inclusion criteria

The aim of this study was to compare liver and oncologic lesion standardized uptake values (SUV) obtained through two different reconstruction protocols, GE’s newest clinical lesion detection protocol (Q.Clear...

Authors: Joke Devriese, Laurence Beels, Alex Maes, Christophe Van de Wiele and Hans Pottel

Biodistribution, pharmacokinetics, and organ-level dosimetry for ¹⁸⁸Re-AHDD-Lipiodol radioembolization based on quantitative post-treatment SPECT/CT scans

Rhenium-188-labelled-Lipiodol radioembolization is a safe and cost-effective treatment for primary liver cancer. In order to determine correlations between treatment doses and patient response to therapy, accu...

Authors: Pedro L. Esquinas, Ajit Shinto, Koramadai K. Kamaleshwaran, Jephy Joseph and Anna Celler

Validation of the physiological background correction method for the suppression of the spill-in effect near highly radioactive regions in positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging has a wide applicability in oncology, cardiology and neurology. However, a major drawback when imaging very active regions such as the bladder is the spill-in effect,...

Authors: Mercy I. Akerele, Palak Wadhwa, Jesus Silva-Rodriguez, William Hallett and Charalampos Tsoumpas

Fast quantitative reconstruction with focusing collimators for liver SPECT

Generation of a SPECT scan during procedure may aid in the optimization of treatments as liver radioembolization by offering image-guided dosimetry. This, however, requires both shortened acquisition times and...

Authors: Martijn M. A. Dietze, Sandra van der Velden, Marnix G. E. H. Lam, Max A. Viergever and Hugo W. A. M. de Jong

Performance evaluation of a new high-sensitivity time-of-flight clinical PET/CT system

PoleStar m660 is a newly developed clinical PET/CT system with time-of-flight (TOF) capability. The aim of this study is to characterize the performance of the new system. Spatial resolution, sensitivity, scat...

Authors: Li Huo, Nan Li, Heyu Wu, Wenjia Zhu, Haiqun Xing, Jiantao Ba, Tong Wang, Fang Li and Hui Zhang

Impact of ⁹⁰Y PET gradient-based tumor segmentation on voxel-level dosimetry in liver radioembolization

The purpose was to validate ⁹⁰Y PET gradient-based tumor segmentation in phantoms and to evaluate the impact of the segmentation method on reported tumor absorbed dose (AD) and biological effective dose (BED) in

Authors: Justin K. Mikell, Ravi K. Kaza, Peter L. Roberson, Kelly C. Younge, Ravi N. Srinivasa, Bill S. Majdalany, Kyle C. Cuneo, Dawn Owen, Theresa Devasia, Matthew J. Schipper and Yuni K. Dewaraja

Feasibility of PET/CT system performance harmonisation for quantitative multicentre ⁸⁹Zr studies

The aim of this study was to investigate the variability in quantitative performance and feasibility of quantitative harmonisation in ⁸⁹Zr PET/CT imaging.

Authors: Andres Kaalep, Marc Huisman, Terez Sera, Danielle Vugts and Ronald Boellaard

A deep learning approach for ¹⁸F-FDG PET attenuation correction

To develop and evaluate the feasibility of a data-driven deep learning approach (deepAC) for positron-emission tomography (PET) image attenuation correction without anatomical imaging. A PET attenuation correc...

Authors: Fang Liu, Hyungseok Jang, Richard Kijowski, Gengyan Zhao, Tyler Bradshaw and Alan B. McMillan

The physics of radioembolization

Radioembolization is an established treatment for chemoresistant and unresectable liver cancers. Currently, treatment planning is often based on semi-empirical methods, which yield acceptable toxicity profiles...

Authors: Remco Bastiaannet, S. Cheenu Kappadath, Britt Kunnen, Arthur J. A. T. Braat, Marnix G. E. H. Lam and Hugo W. A. M. de Jong

Evaluation of zero-echo-time attenuation correction for integrated PET/MR brain imaging—comparison to head atlas and ⁶⁸Ge-transmission-based attenuation correction

MRI does not offer a direct method to obtain attenuation correction maps as its predecessors (stand-alone PET and PET/CT), and bone visualisation is particularly challenging. Recently, zero-echo-time (ZTE) was...

Authors: João M. Sousa, Lieuwe Appel, Mathias Engström, Stergios Papadimitriou, Dag Nyholm, Elna-Marie Larsson, Håkan Ahlström and Mark Lubberink

Accuracy and reproducibility of simplified QSPECT dosimetry for personalized ¹⁷⁷Lu-octreotate PRRT

Routine dosimetry is essential for personalized ¹⁷⁷Lu-octreotate peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) of neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), but practical and robust dosimetry methods are needed for wide clinic...

Authors: Michela Del Prete, Frédéric Arsenault, Nassim Saighi, Wei Zhao, François-Alexandre Buteau, Anna Celler and Jean-Mathieu Beauregard

Validation of gallbladder absorbed radiation dose reduction simulation: human dosimetry of [¹⁸F]fluortriopride

[¹⁸F]Fluortriopride (FTP) was developed as a dopamine D3-selective radiotracer, thought to be important to neurobiological reward pathways and implicated in drug addiction, Parkinson’s disease, and schizophrenia....

Authors: Robert K. Doot, Jacob G. Dubroff, Joshua S. Scheuermann, Kyle J. Labban, Jenny Cai, Chia-Ju Hsieh, Shihong Li, Hsiaoju Lee, Erin K. Schubert, Catherine Hou, Regan Sheffer, Alexander Schmitz, Kuiying Xu and Robert H. Mach

Impact of a Bayesian penalized likelihood reconstruction algorithm on image quality in novel digital PET/CT: clinical implications for the assessment of lung tumors

The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare PET image reconstruction algorithms on novel digital silicon photomultiplier PET/CT in patients with newly diagnosed and histopathologically confirmed lung can...

Authors: Michael Messerli, Paul Stolzmann, Michèle Egger-Sigg, Josephine Trinckauf, Stefano D’Aguanno, Irene A. Burger, Gustav K. von Schulthess, Philipp A. Kaufmann and Martin W. Huellner

SMART (SiMulAtion and ReconsTruction) PET: an efficient PET simulation-reconstruction tool

Positron-emission tomography (PET) simulators are frequently used for development and performance evaluation of segmentation methods or quantitative uptake metrics. To date, most PET simulation tools are based...

Authors: Elisabeth Pfaehler, Johan R. De Jong, Rudi A. J. O. Dierckx, Floris H. P. van Velden and Ronald Boellaard

Comparison of radiobiological parameters for ⁹⁰Y radionuclide therapy (RNT) and external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) in vitro

Dose rate variation is a critical factor affecting radionuclide therapy (RNT) efficacy. Relatively few studies to date have investigated the dose rate effect in RNT. Therefore, the aim of this study was to ben...

Authors: Yaser H. Gholami, Kathy P. Willowson, Nicholas J. Forwood, Rozelle Harvie, Nicholas Hardcastle, Regina Bromley, HyunJu Ryu, Samuel Yuen, Viive M. Howell, Zdenka Kuncic and Dale L. Bailey

Comparison of PET/CT and PET/MR imaging and dosimetry of yttrium-90 (⁹⁰Y) in patients with unresectable hepatic tumors who have received intra-arterial radioembolization therapy with ⁹⁰Y microspheres

The aim of our study was to compare ⁹⁰Y dosimetry obtained from PET/MRI versus PET/CT post-therapy imaging among patients with primary or metastatic hepatic tumors.

Authors: Karin Knešaurek, Abbas Tuli, Edward Kim, Sherif Heiba and Lale Kostakoglu

Molecular imaging using the theranostic agent ^197(m)Hg: phantom measurements and Monte Carlo simulations

Radiomercury ^197mHg and ¹⁹⁷Hg, henceforth referred to as ^197(m)Hg, is a promising theranostic radionuclide endowed with properties that allow diagnostic and therapeutic applications. The aim of this work was to i...

Authors: Robert Freudenberg, Rudi Apolle, Martin Walther, Holger Hartmann and Jörg Kotzerke

Inter-comparison of quantitative imaging of lutetium-177 (¹⁷⁷Lu) in European hospitals

This inter-comparison exercise was performed to demonstrate the variability of quantitative SPECT/CT imaging for lutetium-177 (¹⁷⁷Lu) in current clinical practice. Our aim was to assess the feasibility of using i...

Authors: Jill Wevrett, Andrew Fenwick, James Scuffham, Lena Johansson, Jonathan Gear, Susanne Schlögl, Marcel Segbers, Katarina Sjögreen-Gleisner, Pavel Solný, Michael Lassmann, Jill Tipping and Andrew Nisbet