| 1. |
- Georgiopoulos, Charalampos, et al.
(författare)
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Quantitative brain stem assessment in discriminating neurodegenerative disorders from normal pressure hydrocephalus
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Ingår i: Journal of Neuroimaging. - 1051-2284.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background and Purpose: Differentiating idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) from neurodegenerative disorders such as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), Multiple System Atrophy—parkinsonian type (MSA-P), and vascular dementia (VaD) is challenging due to overlapping clinical and neuroimaging findings. This study assesses if quantitative brain stem and cerebellum metrics can aid in this differentiation. Methods: We retrospectively compared the sagittal midbrain area, midbrain to pons ratio, MR parkinsonism index (MRPI), and cerebellar atrophy in 30 PSP patients, 31 iNPH patients, 27 MSA-P patients, 32 VaD patients, and 25 healthy controls. Statistical analyses determined group differences, sensitivity, specificity, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curves. Results: There was an overlap in midbrain morphology between PSP and iNPH, as assessed with MRPI, midbrain to pons ratio, and midbrain area. A cutoff value of MRPI > 13 exhibited 84% specificity in distinguishing PSP from iNPH and 100% in discriminating PSP from all other conditions. A cutoff value of midbrain to pons ratio at <0.15 yielded 95% specificity for differentiating PSP from iNPH and 100% from all other conditions. A cutoff value of midbrain area at <87 mm2 exhibited 97% specificity for differentiating PSP from iNPH and 100% from all other conditions. All measures showed low sensitivity. Cerebellar atrophy did not differ significantly among groups. Conclusion: Our study questions MRPI's diagnostic performance in distinguishing PSP from iNPH. Simpler indices such as midbrain to pons ratio and midbrain area showed similar or better accuracy. However, all these indices displayed low sensitivity despite significant differences among PSP, MSA-P, and VaD.
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| 2. |
- Sousa, João M., et al.
(författare)
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Accuracy and precision of zero-echo-time, single- and multi-atlas attenuation correction for dynamic [11C]PE2I PET-MR brain imaging
- 2020
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Ingår i: EJNMMI Physics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2197-7364. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: A valid photon attenuation correction (AC) method is instrumental for obtaining quantitatively correct PET images. Integrated PET/MR systems provide no direct information on attenuation, and novel methods for MR-based AC (MRAC) are still under investigation. Evaluations of various AC methods have mainly focused on static brain PET acquisitions. In this study, we determined the validity of three MRAC methods in a dynamic PET/MR study of the brain.METHODS: Nine participants underwent dynamic brain PET/MR scanning using the dopamine transporter radioligand [11C]PE2I. Three MRAC methods were evaluated: single-atlas (Atlas), multi-atlas (MaxProb) and zero-echo-time (ZTE). The 68Ge-transmission data from a previous stand-alone PET scan was used as reference method. Parametric relative delivery (R1) images and binding potential (BPND) maps were generated using cerebellar grey matter as reference region. Evaluation was based on bias in MRAC maps, accuracy and precision of [11C]PE2I BPND and R1 estimates, and [11C]PE2I time-activity curves. BPND was examined for striatal regions and R1 in clusters of regions across the brain.RESULTS: For BPND, ZTE-MRAC showed the highest accuracy (bias < 2%) in striatal regions. Atlas-MRAC exhibited a significant bias in caudate nucleus (- 12%) while MaxProb-MRAC revealed a substantial, non-significant bias in the putamen (9%). R1 estimates had a marginal bias for all MRAC methods (- 1.0-3.2%). MaxProb-MRAC showed the largest intersubject variability for both R1 and BPND. Standardized uptake values (SUV) of striatal regions displayed the strongest average bias for ZTE-MRAC (~ 10%), although constant over time and with the smallest intersubject variability. Atlas-MRAC had highest variation in bias over time (+10 to - 10%), followed by MaxProb-MRAC (+5 to - 5%), but MaxProb showed the lowest mean bias. For the cerebellum, MaxProb-MRAC showed the highest variability while bias was constant over time for Atlas- and ZTE-MRAC.CONCLUSIONS: Both Maxprob- and ZTE-MRAC performed better than Atlas-MRAC when using a 68Ge transmission scan as reference method. Overall, ZTE-MRAC showed the highest precision and accuracy in outcome parameters of dynamic [11C]PE2I PET analysis with use of kinetic modelling.
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| 3. |
- Sousa, Joao M., 1989-, et al.
(författare)
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Comparison of quantitative [11C]PE2I PET scans acquired on PET/MR and stand-alone PET
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Ingår i: Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism. - 0271-678X .- 1559-7016.
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Dedicated PET systems using transmission-based attenuation correction (AC) are regarded as the gold standard for quantitative brain PET. PET/MR systems demanded great efforts for accurate AC but differences in technology, geometry and hardware attenuation may also affect quantitative results. This study compares PET quantitative outcomes between a stand-alone PET and PET/MR scanner. Ten patients with parkinsonism underwent two 80-min dynamic PET scans with the dopamine transporter ligand [11C]PE2I. Images were reconstructed using resolution-matched settings and transmission scans (stand-alone PET) and zero-echo-time (PET/MR) for AC. SUV, relative delivery (R1), and dopamine transporter availability (BPND) were compared on a VOI- and voxel-basis. Correlations between systems were high (≥ 0.85) for all quantitative parameters. On VOI-basis, striatal BPND was significantly lower on PET/MR than on stand-alone PET (-7%). R1 was significantly overestimated in posterior cortical regions (9%) and underestimated in striatal (-9%) and limbic areas (-6%). SUV showed a similar pattern as R1. Voxel-by-voxel analysis showed significant positive bias of R1 in the auditory cortex. PET/MR significantly underestimated striatal BPND, similar to previously reported [11C]PE2I BPND test-retest variability. The acoustic noise in the PET/MR environment may attribute to an overestimation of R1 in the auditory cortex, which needs consideration when using PET/MR data.
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| 4. |
- Sousa, Joao M., 1989-, et al.
(författare)
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Composite attenuation correction method using a 68Ge-transmission multi-atlas for quantitative brain PET/MR.
- 2022
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Ingår i: Physica medica (Testo stampato). - : Elsevier. - 1120-1797 .- 1724-191X. ; 97, s. 36-43
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In positron emission tomography (PET), 68Ge-transmission scanning is considered the gold standard in attenuation correction (AC) though not available in current dual imaging systems. In this experimental study we evaluated a novel AC method for PET/magnetic resonance (MR) imaging which is essentially based on a composite database of multiple 68Ge-transmission maps and T1-weighted (T1w) MR image-pairs (composite transmission, CTR-AC). This proof-of-concept study used retrospectively a database with 125 pairs of co-registered 68Ge-AC maps and T1w MR images from anatomical normal subjects and a validation dataset comprising dynamic [11C]PE2I PET data from nine patients with Parkinsonism. CTR-AC maps were generated by non-rigid image registration of all database T1w MRI to each subject's T1w, applying the same transformation to every 68Ge-AC map, and averaging the resulting 68Ge-AC maps. [11C]PE2I PET images were reconstructed using CTR-AC and a patient-specific 68Ge-AC map as the reference standard. Standardized uptake values (SUV) and quantitative parameters of kinetic analysis were compared, i.e., relative delivery (R1) and non-displaceable binding potential (BPND). CTR-AC showed high accuracy for whole-brain SUV (mean %bias ± SD: 0.5 ± 3.5%), whole-brain R1 (-0.1 ± 3.2%), and putamen BPND (3.7 ± 8.1%). SUV and R1 precision (SD of %bias) were modest and lowest in the anterior cortex, with an R1 %bias of -1.1 ± 6.4%). The prototype CTR-AC is capable of providing accurate MRAC-maps with continuous linear attenuation coefficients though still experimental. The method's accuracy is comparable to the best MRAC methods published so far, both in SUV and as found for ZTE-AC in quantitative parameters of kinetic modelling.
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| 5. |
- Sousa, João M., et al.
(författare)
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Evaluation of zero-echo-time attenuation correction for integrated PET/MR brain imaging-comparison to head atlas and 68Ge-transmission-based attenuation correction
- 2018
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Ingår i: EJNMMI Physics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2197-7364. ; 5:20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: 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 suggested for MR-based attenuation correction (AC). The aim of this work was to evaluate ZTE- and atlas-AC by comparison to 68Ge-transmission scan-based AC.Nine patients underwent brain PET/MR and stand-alone PET scanning using the dopamine transporter ligand 11C-PE2I. For each of them, two AC maps were obtained from the MR images: an atlas-based, obtained from T1-weighted LAVA-FLEX imaging with cortical bone inserted using a CT-based atlas, and an AC map generated from proton-density-weighted ZTE images. Stand-alone PET 68Ge-transmission AC map was used as gold standard. PET images were reconstructed using the three AC methods and standardised uptake value (SUV) values for the striatal, limbic and cortical regions, as well as the cerebellum (VOIs) were compared. SUV ratio (SUVR) values normalised for the cerebellum were also assessed. Bias, precision and agreement were calculated; statistical significance was evaluated using Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test.Results: Both ZTE- and atlas-AC showed a similar bias of 6–8% in SUV values across the regions. Correlation coefficients with 68Ge-AC were consistently high for ZTE-AC (r 0.99 for all regions), whereas they were lower for atlas-AC, varying from 0.99 in the striatum to 0.88 in the posterior cortical regions. SUVR showed an overall bias of 2.9 and 0.5% for atlas-AC and ZTE-AC, respectively. Correlations with 68Ge-AC were higher for ZTE-AC, varying from 0.99 in the striatum to 0.96 in the limbic regions, compared to atlas-AC (0.99 striatum to 0.77 posterior cortex).Conclusions: Absolute SUV values showed less variability for ZTE-AC than for atlas-AC when compared to 68Ge-AC, but bias was similar for both methods. This bias is largely caused by higher linear attenuation coefficients in atlas- and ZTE-AC image compared to 68Ge-images. For SUVR, bias was lower when using ZTE-AC than for atlas-AC. ZTE-AC shows to be a more robust technique than atlas-AC in terms of both intra- and inter-patient variability.
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