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18F is the most extensively used radioisotope in current clinical practices of PET imaging. This selection is based on the several criteria of pure PET radioisotopes with an optimum half-life, and low positron energy that contributes to a smaller positron range. In addition to 18F, other radioisotopes such as 68Ga and 124I are currently gained much attention with the increase in interest in new PET tracers entering the clinical trials. This study aims to determine the minimal scan time per bed position (Tmin) for the 124I and 68Ga based on the quantitative differences in PET imaging of 68Ga and 124I relative to 18F. The European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) procedure guidelines version 2.0 for FDG-PET tumor imaging has adhered for this purpose. A NEMA2012/IEC2008 phantom was filled with tumor to background ratio of 10:1 with the activity concentration of 30 kBq/ml ± 10 and 3 kBq/ml ± 10% for each radioisotope. The phantom was scanned using different acquisition times per bed position (1, 5, 7, 10 and 15 min) to determine the Tmin. The definition of Tmin was performed using an image coefficient of variations (COV) of 15%. Tmin obtained for 18F, 68Ga and 124I were 3.08, 3.24 and 32.93 min, respectively. Quantitative analyses among 18F, 68Ga and 124I images were performed. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast recovery coefficients (CRC), and visibility (VH) are the image quality parameters analysed in this study. Generally, 68Ga and 18F gave better image quality as compared to 124I for all the parameters studied. We have defined Tmin for 18F, 68Ga and 124I SPECT CT imaging based on NEMA2012/IEC2008 phantom imaging. Despite the long scanning time suggested by Tmin, improvement in the image quality is acquired especially for 124I. In clinical practice, the long acquisition time, nevertheless, may cause patient discomfort and motion artifact.

To compare the diagnostic accuracy of whole-body PET/CT and integrated PET/MR in relation to the total scan time durations. One hundred and twenty-three (123) patients (40 males and 83 females; mean age 59.6 years; range 20–83 years) with confirmed primary cancer and clinical suspicion of metastatic disease underwent whole-body 18F-FDG-PET/CT and 18F-FDG-PET/MR. Data acquisition was done after intravenous administration of 110–301 MBq radioactivity of 18F-FDG, and PET/MR data were acquired after the PET/CT data acquisition. The mean uptake times for PET/CT and PET/MR acquisition were 68.0 ± 8.0 and 98.0 ± 14 min, respectively. Total scan time was 20.0 and 25.0 min for whole-body PET/CT and PET/MR imaging. The reconstructed PET/CT and PET/MR data detected 333/355 (93.8 %) common lesions in 111/123 (90.2 %) patients. PET/CT and PET/MR alone detected 348/355 and 340/355 lesions, respectively. No significant (p = 0.08) difference was observed for the overall detection efficiency between the two techniques. On the other hand, a significant difference was observed between the two techniques for the detection of lung (p = 0.003) and cerebrospinal (p = 0.007) lesions. The 15 lesions identified by PET/CT only included 8 lung, 3 lymph nodes, 2 bone, and 1 each of peritoneal and adrenal gland lesions. On the other hand, 7 (6 brain metastatic lesions and 1 bone lesion) were identified by PET/MR only. Integrated PET/MR is a feasible whole-body imaging modality and may score better than PET/CT for the detection of brain metastases. To further prove diagnostic utility, this technique requires further clinical validation.

Objective: Image interpretation in positron emission tomography (PET) using F-18-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) is usually performed for images obtained at 1 h postinjection (PI) of FDG, but it remains unknown whether this is the optimal time for imaging patients with pancreatic disease. The aim of this study was to assess the optimal scan time for FDG-PET for patients suspected of having pancreatic cancer.Patients and Methods: Forty-four patients with suspected pancreatic cancer underwent FDG-PET scans at both 1 h and 2 h PI. Tracer uptake in the pancreatic lesions and possible liver metastasis was interpreted qualitatively, using a 5-point grading system (0 = normal, 1 = probably normal, 2 = equivocal, 3 = probably abnormal, and 4 = definitely abnormal) by 4 nuclear medicine physicians independently, who were blind to all clinical information. Detection performance with each image was compared using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. An average score of the 4 readers for each patient was also defined as consensus average index (CAI) and compared between the two images.Results: ROC results indicated no significant differences in detection performance (Averaged areas under ROC curves of 1 h vs. 2 h were 0.92 vs. 0.90 for primary tumor, and 0.81 vs. 0.85 for liver metastases). There were no significant differences in CAIs between 1 h and 2 h PI images in interpreting primary tumor and positive liver metastases, but a significant difference was observed for cases without liver metastases (p

Myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) systems using a multifocal collimator can reduce scan time substantially compared with conventional MPI systems. In this study, we evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of multifocal collimator SPECT/CT in coronary artery disease (CAD) detection by comparing it with coronary artery angiography (CAG).We retrospectively analyzed 50 consecutive patients who had undergone CAG and stress (201)Tl MPI multifocal collimator SPECT/CT within a 3-month period. A summed difference score (SDS) was calculated for each vascular territory from the MPI images. On CAG, a stenotic coronary artery was defined as one with luminal narrowing of ≥75 % with quantitative coronary angiography software.We analyzed the diagnostic accuracy of coronary artery stenosis detection using the definition that a coronary artery territory was ischemic when the SDS per vessel was ≥2. We generated receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to evaluate the usefulness of SDS per vascular territory to find coronary artery stenoses. The area under the ROC curve was 0.86 and cut-off value was 2. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy to detect stenoses were 85, 83, 66, 94 and 84 %, respectively.We confirmed the high accuracy of imaging with multifocal collimator SPECT/CT for detection of angiographically significant CAD.

The objective of the study was to present a simple method for comparing clinical PET images to a set of increasing quality images. Those different quality images were obtained by varying the activity concentration and the acquisition time.Images of a Jaszczak phantom were acquired with scan times that were calculated with a spreadsheet application for a personal computer to obtain 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 7000 and 9000 counts/4 mm(3) voxel. During a 10-h period, each scan was repeated with longer acquisition times to obtain the same number of counts in the reconstructed images, but with lower count rate. On the second day, the study was repeated, putting the phantom in a water bath to simulate larger patients.The quality of the images obtained with the phantom in water was worse than without, as expected. Phantom data demonstrated clearly the effect of higher counts on image quality. Good quality images were obtained with counts above 5000 counts/voxel. Patient data can be situated to the phantom image set by comparing the counts per voxel and the activity concentration. The counts per voxel in all the regions of interest on patient data, with the exception of the brain, were at sub-optimal level leading to decreased image quality. It is clear that better image quality can be achieved mainly by incrementing the scan time. Our PET system, however, allows doubling our standard injected activity to obtain more image counts without significant contrast loss.This simple test can be performed at any PET center to situate the quality of routine clinical PET images in comparison to the optimal possible for that system.

Regional cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebral blood volume, oxygen extraction fraction (OEF), and cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO2) can be estimated from C15O, H(2)15O, and 15O2 tracers and positron emission tomography (PET) using an autoradiographic (ARG) method. Our objective in this study was to optimize the scan time for 15O2 gas study for accurate estimation of OEF and CMRO2.We evaluated statistical noise in OEF by varying the scan time and error caused by the tissue heterogeneity in estimated OEF and CMRO2 using computer simulations. The characteristics of statistical noise were investigated by signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio from repeated tissue time activity curves with noise, which were generated using measured averaged arterial input function and assuming CBF=20, 50, and 80 (ml/100 g per minute). Error caused by tissue heterogeneity was also investigated by estimated OEF and CMRO2 from tissue time activity curve with mixture of gray and white matter varying fraction of mixture. In the simulations, three conditions were assumed (i) CBF in gray and white matter (CBFg and CBFw) was 80 and 20, OEF in gray and white matter (Eg and Ew) was 0.4 and 0.3, (ii) CBFg and CBFw decreased by 50%, and Eg and Ew increased by 50% when compared with conditions (i) and (iii). CBFg and CBFw decreased by 80%, and Eg and Ew increased by 50% when compared with condition (i).The longer scan time produced the better S/N ratio of estimated OEF value from three CBF values (20, 50, and 80). Errors of estimated OEF for three conditions owing to tissue heterogeneity decreased, as scan time took longer. Meanwhile in the case of CMRO2, 3 min of scan time was desirable.The optimal scan time of 15O2 inhalation study with the ARG method was concluded to be 3 min from taking into account for maintaining the S/N ratio and the quantification of accurate OEF and CMRO2.