A phantom study evaluating the quantitative aspect of 3D PET imaging of the brain

Simultaneous attenuation and scatter corrections in small animal PET imaging

The aim of this work is to simultaneously correct for attenuation and scatter in PET by analytically assessing the distribution of the scattered photons using the emission and the transmission images, the probability of scatter interactions and the detection efficiency. Above the usual lower energy threshold of 350 keV, the attenuated photons are dominantly those which have undergone a Compton scattering. By considering that each pixel in the image is the measurement of the transmitted photons through the subject, added to the contribution from the other sources by means of their scatter at this position, a simple equation is established accounting for the primaries by simultaneously correcting the data for attenuation and scatter for all emitting sources. This new method was applied in Monte Carlo simulated and measured data with the Sherbrooke small animal PET scanner in line sources, hot spot phantoms, and in rat hearts and tumors, and was compared to the approach developed by Watson et al.

Direct comparison between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional PET acquisition modes for myocardial blood flow absolute quantification with O-15 water and N-13 ammonia

BACKGROUND

Positron emission tomography scanners with retractable septa allow both 3-dimensional (3D) and 2-dimensional (2D) acquisition modes. The study aim was to directly compare 2D and 3D acquisition modes for the evaluation of absolute myocardial blood flow (MBF) over a wide range of flow values.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Instrumentation was used in 4 dogs to reduce the left circumflex artery lumen by greater than 75%. During infusion of adenosine, MBF was measured with both 2D and 3D dynamic acquisition and both oxygen 15 water and nitrogen 13 ammonia. Injected activities were 333 MBq and 111 MBq for 2D acquisition and 3D acquisition, respectively. Data were reconstructed by analytic methods, and MBF was assessed by use of an 18-segment model. MBF values ranged from 0.4 to 5.8 mL x g(-1) x min(-1) with O-15 water and from 0.3 to 3.9 mL x g(-1) x min(-1) with N-13 ammonia. No significant differences were observed in absolute MBF values obtained with the 2 acquisition modes, regardless of the flow tracer used. Two-dimensionally and three-dimensionally derived MBF values were significantly strongly correlated by use of both O-15 water (y = 0.98x + 0.18, r = 0.87, P < .001) and N-13 ammonia (y = 0.99x + 0.09, r = 0.95, P < .001).

CONCLUSION

Quantification of MBF in dogs with 3D positron emission tomography provides results similar to those obtained with the 2D technique, despite a lower activity being injected.

Scatter modelling and compensation in emission tomography

In nuclear medicine, clinical assessment and diagnosis are generally based on qualitative assessment of the distribution pattern of radiotracers used. In addition, emission tomography (SPECT and PET) imaging methods offer the possibility of quantitative assessment of tracer concentration in vivo to quantify relevant parameters in clinical and research settings, provided accurate correction for the physical degrading factors (e.g. attenuation, scatter, partial volume effects) hampering their quantitative accuracy are applied. This review addresses the problem of Compton scattering as the dominant photon interaction phenomenon in emission tomography and discusses its impact on both the quality of reconstructed clinical images and the accuracy of quantitative analysis. After a general introduction, there is a section in which scatter modelling in uniform and non-uniform media is described in detail. This is followed by an overview of scatter compensation techniques and evaluation strategies used for the assessment of these correction methods. In the process, emphasis is placed on the clinical impact of image degradation due to Compton scattering. This, in turn, stresses the need for implementation of more accurate algorithms in software supplied by scanner manufacturers, although the choice of a general-purpose algorithm or algorithms may be difficult.

Effects of attenuation correction and reconstruction method on PET activation studies

The outcome of Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) analyses of PET activation studies depends among others, on the quality of reconstructed data. In general, filtered back-projection (FBP) is used for reconstruction in PET activation studies. There is, however, increasing interest in iterative reconstruction algorithms such as ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM) algorithms. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of reconstruction techniques and attenuation correction (AC) on the detection of activation foci following statistical analysis with SPM. First, a replicate study was performed to assess the effects of the reconstruction method on pixel variance. Second, a phantom study was performed to evaluate the influence of both locations of an activated area and applied reconstruction method on SPM outcome. A volumetric method was used to compute the number of false positive voxels for all reconstructions. In addition, average t values within activation foci and for false positive voxels were calculated. For the assessment of the effects of reconstruction on clinical data, a group of 11 patients was studied. For all reconstructions SPM maps were created and compared. Both the clinical and the phantom data showed that use of iterative reconstruction methods reduced false positive results, while showing similar SPM results within activated areas as FBP. Reconstruction of data without attenuation correction reduced noise for FBP only, but did not affect the quality of SPM results for OSEM. It is concluded that OSEM is a good alternative for FBP reconstructions providing SPM results with less noise.

Experimental evaluation of iterative reconstruction versus filtered back projection for 3D [15O]water PET activation studies using statistical parametric mapping analysis

Iterative reconstructions are increasingly used for clinical PET studies owing to the better noise properties compared with filtered backprojection (FBP). The purpose of the present study was to compare ordered subsets expectation maximization (OSEM) iterative reconstruction with FBP as input for statistical parametric mapping (SPM) analysis of PET activation studies. Two phantom studies were performed simulating both motor and cognitive tasks and acquiring data with both high and low statistics. In contrast to clinical studies, where no a priori information is known, phantom studies allow for an accurate and detailed comparison between different reconstruction techniques. The significance of "activations" during "tasks" was determined using SPM99 software. Using region of interest analysis of SPM results, it was found that the maximum and average t values within each hot spot of the phantom were higher for OSEM than for FBP. In addition, OSEM4 x 16 (4 iterations, 16 subsets) produced fewer false-positive voxels than FBP, OSEM1 x 16 and OSEM2 x 16. In conclusion, for PET activation studies use of OSEM4 x 16 seems to give the best tradeoff between signal detection and noise reduction.

Analysis of four dopaminergic tracers kinetics using two different tissue input function methods

The integrity of the dopaminergic system can be studied using positron emission tomography. The presynaptic tracers [11C]-methylphenidate and [11C]dihydrotetrabenazine (DTBZ) are used to investigate the dopamine transporter availability, the dopamine vesicular transporter integrity; the postsynaptic tracers [11C]-raclopride and [11C]-Schering 23990 (SCH) are used to probe the D2 and D1 receptors. These are reversible tracers, where the binding potential (BP) = Bmax/Kd often is used to quantify the amount of their specific binding to the sites of interest. The simplified tissue input methods to calculate BP are attractive, since they do not require a blood input function. The suitability and performance of two such methods were evaluated: the Logan graphical tissue method, and the Lammertsma reference tissue method (RTM). The BP estimates obtained with the two methods were nearly identical in most cases, with similar reliability and reproducibility indicating that all four tracers satisfy the assumptions required by each method. The correlations among the fitted parameters obtained from the RTM were estimated and were found not to introduce noticeable bias in the RTM BP and R1 estimates. R1 showed low intersubject and intrasubject variability. The k2 estimate showed good reliability for SCH with cerebellar input function and DTBZ with occipital input function.

Investigation of scattered radiation in 3D whole-body positron emission tomography using Monte Carlo simulations

The correction of scattered radiation is one of the most challenging tasks in 3D positron emission tomography (PET) and knowledge about the amount of scatter and its distribution is a prerequisite for performing an accurate correction. One concern in 3D PET in contrast to 2D PET is the scatter contribution from activity outside the field-of-view (FOV) and multiple scatter. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we examined the scatter distribution for various phantoms. The simulations were performed for a whole-body PET system (ECAT EXACT HR+, Siemens/CTI) with an axial FOV of 15.5 cm and a ring diameter of 82.7 cm. With (without) interplane septa, up to one (two) out of three detected events are scattered (for a centred point source in a water-filled cylinder that nearly fills out the patient port), whereby the relative scatter fraction varies significantly with the axial position. Our results show that for an accurate scatter correction, activity as well as scattering media outside the FOV have to be taken into account. Furthermore it could be shown that there is a considerable amount of multiple scatter which has a different spatial distribution from single scatter. This means that multiple scatter cannot be corrected by simply rescaling the single scatter component.