Preview its capabilities in the video below:

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PET/MR imaging of patient with antisynthetase syndrome, a rare rheumatologic syndrome that is associated with interstitial lung disease, dermatomyositis, and polymyositis.

Researchers examine the use of combined PET/MR in their study published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine run by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI). With breakthroughs in finding new detectors to replace photomultiplier tubes (PMT) in traditional PET, such as avalanche photodiodes (APD), Geiger-mode APDs (AKA silicon PMTs or solid-state PMTs), and silicon photomultipliers (SiPM), tolerance to magnetic fields and time-of-flight PET scans became possible. X-Z LAB’s Basic Detector Module (BDM) | PET Detector Module utilizes this technology and enhances it with our patented multi-voltage threshold (MVT) algorithm.

Although the researchers do not see combined PET/MR replacing PET/CT for clinical diagnostics, they believe it will likely overtake PET/CT in small-animal and clinical research. MR does not require additional ionizing radiation like CT does, and it provides much better soft-tissue contrast as well. Its low sensitivity is compensated for with PET, which has high sensitivity, and MR makes up for PET’s lack of anatomic landmarks for metabolic information.

Not only do they compare combined PET/MR with PET/CT, they also show the pros and cons of performing combined PET/MR versus sequential PET/MR. Sequential PET/MR has fewer technologic challenges and allow for each modality to be used separately, which could reduce initial investment and operation costs. However, combined PET/MR has the advantage of simultaneity, acquiring multiple functional and physiologic parameters at the same time, such as temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate. This is especially important when imaging certain parts of the body, such as the abdominal area, where differences in patient movement and position makes fusing sequential images troublesome.

Overall, the authors believe that combined PET/MR will quickly become a new standard in preclinical and clinical research. In order for that to happen, though, users must undergo thorough training and protocols must be established.

Abstract

The combination of PET and MR imaging forms a powerful new imaging modality, PET/MR. The major advantages of concurrent PET/MR acquisitions range from patient comfort and increased throughput to multiparametric imaging and are evaluated and reviewed in this paper specifically with respect to their applications in research and diagnostics. Alongside the use of PET/MR in the field of preclinical research, this paper illuminates the impact of this new modality in the clinical field in such areas as neurology, oncology, and cardiology. Now that PET/MR technology has matured, attention is needed on standardizing education for nuclear and radiologic technologists and physicians specifically for this combined modality. Furthermore, the impact of this combined modality on health economy needs to be addressed in more detail to further propel its use.

Document Credits

Hans F. Wehrl¹, Alexander W. Sauter^1,2, Mathew R. Divine¹ and Bernd J. Pichler¹

¹Werner Siemens Imaging Center, Department for Preclinical Imaging and Radiopharmacy, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

²Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

Wehrl HF, Sauter AW, Divine MR, Pichler BJ. 2015. Combined PET/MR: A Technology Becomes Mature. J Nucl Med. 56(2):165-168.

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Dr. Catharine Paddock’s article for Medical News Today, “PET scans can help select best TB drugs for trials,” reveals advantages of scanning primates versus mice due to similar disease profiles shared by human and primate. In a study led by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, linezolid, a drug developed to treat extensively drug-resisistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), was found to be effective in humans and macaques using PET/CT scans, although earlier studies on mice showed no effect.

X-Z LAB’s small animal PET technology allows small animals as well as not-so-small animals to be scanned, thereby improving the preclinical process. The Trans-PET^® BioCaliburn^® occupies this niche within a niche and delivers the unique ability to scan multiple mice simultaneously or single primates.

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Source: Nichole Cartmell/KOMU

President of Radiological Technologies Universities, Brent D. Murphy, MS, DABR, underscores the efficacy of PET and champions increased utilization of PET in oncology.

In the linked presentation, Dr. Murphy illustrates PET advantages in both sensitivity (the probability of a positive test, given that a patient is ill) and specificity (the probability of a negative test, given that a patient is well). The improvements discussed can apply to small-animal PET and preclinical scans, like the Trans-PET® BioCaliburn®.

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The Trans-PET^® BioCaliburn^® LH is a commercial positron emission tomography (PET) system for animal imaging. The system offers a large transaxial field-of-view (FOV) of 13.0 cm to allow imaging of multiple rodents or larger animals. This paper evaluates and reports the performance characteristics of this system. Methods: in this paper, the system was evaluated for its spatial resolutions, sensitivity, scatter fraction, count rate performance and image quality in accordance with the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) NU-4 2008 specification with modifications. Phantoms and animals not specified in the NEMA specification were also scanned to provide further demonstration of its imaging capability. Results: the spatial resolution is 1.0 mm at the center. When using a 350–650 keV energy window and a 5 ns coincidence time window, the sensitivity at the center is 2.04%. The noise equivalent count-rate curve reaches a peak value of 62 kcps at 28 MBq for the mouse-sized phantom and a peak value of 25 kcps at 31 MBq for the rat-sized phantom. The scatter fractions are 8.4% and 17.7% for the mouse- and rat-sized phantoms, respectively. The uniformity and recovery coefficients measured by using the NEMA image-quality phantom both indicate good imaging performance, even though the reconstruction algorithm provided by the vendor does not implement all desired corrections. The Derenzo-phantom images show that the system can resolve 1.0 mm diameter rods. Animal studies demonstrate the capabilities of the system in dynamic imaging and to image multiple rodents. Conclusion: the Trans-PET^® BioCaliburn^® LH system offers high spatial resolution, a large transaixal FOV and adequate sensitivity. It produces animal images of good quality and supports dynamic imaging. The system is an attractive imaging technology for preclinical research.

Figure 1. The Trans-PET® BioCaliburn® LH system (a) consists of 12 BDMs (b).

Document Credits

Luyao Wang^1,2, Jun Zhu^1,2, Xiao Liang^1,2, Ming Niu^1,2, Xiaoke Wu^1,2, Chien-Min Kao³, Heejong Kim³ and Qingguo Xie^1,2

¹ Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, People’s Republic of China
² Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, People’s Republic of China
³ The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Luyao Wang et al 2015 Phys. Med. Biol. 60 137

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It is also difficult to modify or extend the event-processing technologies when needs arise because it would involve making changes to the circuitry. These limitations can be circumvented by applying digital signal-processing technologies for analyzing event pulses generated in PET. With digital technologies, optimized event-processing algorithms can be implemented and they can be modified or extended with ease when needed.

The resulting PET data-acquisition (DAQ) system is easier to calibrate and maintain, can generate more accurate event information, and has better extendibility. In this paper, we present our work toward developing a scalable all-digital DAQ system for PET, built upon a personal-computer platform for reducing cost. We will present the overall architecture of this digital DAQ system, and describe our implementations of several components of the system.

Document Credits
Qingguo Xie^1,2, Chien-Min Kao², Rongsheng Xia³, XiWang³, Na Li³, Xin Jiang³, Li Zhi², Zhi Zhang², Zhonghua Deng³, Chin-Tu Chen¹

¹ Department of Radiology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
² Department of Biomedical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology,Wuhan, China
³ Department of Control Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

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In this paper, we report our prototype implementation of this sampling method and the performance results obtained with this prototype. The prototype consists of two multi-threshold discriminator boards and a time-to-digital converter (TDC) board. Each of the multi-threshold discriminator boards takes one input and provides up to eight threshold levels, which can be defined by users, for sampling the input signal. The TDC board employs the CERN HPTDC chip that determines the digitized times of the leading and falling edges of the discriminator output pulses. We connect our prototype electronics to the outputs of two Hamamatsu R9800 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) that are individually coupled to a 6.25×6.25×25 mm3 LSO crystal. By analyzing waveform samples generated by using four thresholds, we obtain a coincidence timing resolution of about 340 ps and an ~18% energy resolution at 511 keV.

We are also able to estimate the decay-time constant from the resulting samples and obtain a mean value of 44 ns with an ~9 ns FWHM. In comparison, using digitized waveforms obtained at a 20 GSps sampling rate for the same LSO/PMT modules we obtain ~300 ps coincidence timing resolution, ~14% energy resolution at 511 keV, and ~5 ns FWHM for the estimated decay-time constant. Details of the results on the timing and energy resolutions by using the multi-threshold method indicate that it is a promising approach for implementing digital PET data acquisition.

Document Credits
H. Kim ^a*, C.M.Kao ^a, Q.Xie ^a, C.T.Chen ^a, L.Zhou ^b, F.Tang ^b, H.Frisch ^b, W.W.Moses ^c, W.S.Choong ^c
a Department of Radiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
^b Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
^c Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

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