Evaluation of an attenuation correction method for PET/MR imaging of the head based on substitute CT images

• The aim of this study was to evaluate MR-based attenuation correction of PET emission data of the head, based on a previously described technique that calculates substitute CT (sCT) images from a set of MR images. Images from eight patients, examined with F-18-FLT PET/CT and MRI, were included. sCT images were calculated and co-registered to the corresponding CT images, and transferred to the PET/CT scanner for reconstruction. The new reconstructions were then compared with the originals. The effect of replacing bone with soft tissue in the sCT-images was also evaluated. The average relative difference between the sCT-corrected PET images and the CT-corrected PET images was 1.6 % for the head and 1.9 % for the brain. The average standard deviations of the relative differences within the head were relatively high, at 13.2 %, primarily because of large differences in the nasal septa region. For the brain, the average standard deviation was lower, 4.1 %. The global average difference in the head when replacing bone with soft tissue was 11 %. The method presented here has a high rate of accuracy, but high-precision quantitative imaging of the nasal septa region is not possible at the moment.

Keyword

PET/MR

Attenuation correction

Substitute CT

F-18-FLT

UTE

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)