Program Information
Evaluate and Optimize PET Acquisition Overlap in 18F-FDG Oncology Wholebody PET/CT: Can We Scan PET Faster?
J Zhang1*, M Natwa1 , NC Hall1 , MU Knopp2 , B Zhang3 , C Tung3 , MV Knopp1 , (1) The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, (2) Pepperdine University, Malibu, California, (3) Philips Healthcare, Highland Heights, Ohio
Presentations
SU-F-I-57 (Sunday, July 31, 2016) 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Room: Exhibit Hall
Purpose: The longer patient has to remain on the table during PET imaging, the higher the likelihood of motion artifacts due to patient discomfort. This study was to investigate and optimize PET acquisition overlap in 18F-FDG oncology wholebody PET/CT to speed up PET acquisition and improve patient comfort.
Methods: Wholebody 18F-FDG PET/CT of phantoms, 8 pre-clinical patients (beagles) and 5 clinical oncology patients were performed in 90s/bed on a time-of-flight Gemini TF 64 system. Imaging of phantoms and beagles was acquired with reduced PET overlaps (40%, 33%, 27%, 20%, 13% and no overlap) in addition to the system default (53%). In human studies, 1 or 2 reduced overlaps from the listed options were used to acquire PET/CT sweeps right after the default standard of care imaging. Image quality was blindly reviewed using visual scoring criteria and quantitative SUV assessment. NEMA PET sensitivity was performed under different overlaps.
Results: All PET exams demonstrated no significant impact on the visual grades for overlaps >20%. Blinded reviews assigned the best visual scores to PET using overlaps 53%-27%. Reducing overlap to 27% for oncology patients (12-bed) saved an average of ~40% acquisition time (11min) compared to using the default overlap (18min). No significant SUV variances were found when reducing overlap to half of default for cerebellum, lung, heart, aorta, liver, fat, muscle, bone marrow, thighs and target lesions (p>0.05), except expected variability in urinary system.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated by combined phantom, pre-clinical and clinical PET/CT scans that PET acquisition overlap in axial of today’s systems can be reduced and optimized. It showed that a reduction of PET acquisition overlap to 27% (half of system default) can be implemented to reduce table time by ~40% to improve patient comfort and minimize potential motion artifacts, without prominently degrading image quality or compromising PET quantification.
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