Home Progress and perspectives in total body PET systems instrumentation
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Progress and perspectives in total body PET systems instrumentation

  • Stefaan Vandenberghe EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: December 22, 2021
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

Total body positron emission tomography (PET) systems are being developed by different groups worldwide. These systems have potential to change the number of applications in which molecular imaging is used. The change from a short axial field of view (FOV) to a longer one is however associated with a linear increase in the cost of these systems. This may limit their application to a small number of centers (capable of obtaining sufficient research funding). Therefore it remains interesting to see if lower cost systems can be developed and bring total body PET to the clinic for an acceptable budget. The wider availability of this low cost system can also enable more researchers to further optimize and explore the full potential of total body PET.

Keywords: PET; PET-CT; sensitivity

Corresponding author: Stefaan Vandenberghe, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, MEDISIP, Ghent University-IBiTech, De Pintelaan 185 Block B, B-9000Ghent, Belgium, E-mail:

  1. Research funding: None declared.

  2. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.

  4. Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.

  5. Ethical approval: The local Institutional Review Board deemed the study exempt from review.

References

1. Muehllehner, G, Karp, JS. Positron emission tomography. Phys Med Biol 2006;51:117–37. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/51/13/R08.Search in Google Scholar

2. Lewellen, TK. Recent developments in PET detector technology. Phys Med Biol 2008;53:287. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/53/17/R01.Search in Google Scholar

3. Peng, BH, Levin, CS. Recent development in PET instrumentation. Curr Pharmaceut Biotechnol 2010;11:555–71. https://doi.org/10.2174/138920110792246555.Search in Google Scholar

4. Karp, JS, Surti, S, Daube-Witherspoon, ME, Muehllehner, G. Benefit of time-of-flight in PET: experimental and clinical results. J Nucl Med 2008;49:462–70. https://doi.org/10.2967/jnumed.107.044834.Search in Google Scholar

5. Surti, S, Karp, JS. Advances in time-of-flight pet. Phys Med 2016;32:12–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejmp.2015.12.007.Search in Google Scholar

6. Britvitch, I, Johnson, I, Renker, D, Stoykov, A, Lorenz, E. Characterisation of Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes for medical imaging applications. Nucl Instrum Methods Phys Res Sect A Accel Spectrom Detect Assoc Equip 2007;571:308–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2006.10.089.Search in Google Scholar

7. Roncali, E, Cherry, SR. Application of silicon photomultipliers to positron emission tomography. Ann Biomed Eng 2011;39:1358–77.10.1007/s10439-011-0266-9Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central

8. Surti, S, Karp, JS. Impact of detector design on imaging performance of a long axial field-of-view, whole-body PET scanner. Phys Med Biol 2015;60:5343–58. https://doi.org/10.1088.10.1088/0031-9155/60/13/5343Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central

9. Schmall, JP, Karp, JS, Werner, M, Surti, S. Parallax error in long-axial field-of-view PET scanners—a simulation study. Phys Med Biol 2016;61:5443–55. https://doi.org/10.1088.10.1088/0031-9155/61/14/5443Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central

10. Eriksson, L, Townsend, D, Conti, M, Eriksson, M, Rothfuss, H, Schmand, M, et al.. An investigation of sensitivity limits in pet scanners. Nucl Instrum Methods Phys Res Sect A Accel Spectrom Detect Assoc Equip 2007;580:836–42.10.1016/j.nima.2007.06.112Search in Google Scholar

11. Cherry, S, Karp, J, Moses, W, Qi, J, Bec, J, Berg, E, et al.. In: Proceedings of IEEE nuclear science symposium and medical imaging conference; 2013. M03–01.Search in Google Scholar

12. Badawi, RD, Shi, H, Hu, P, Chen, S, Xu, T, Price, PM, et al.. First human imaging studies with the explorer total-body pet scanner. J Nucl Med 2019;60:299–303.10.2967/jnumed.119.226498Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central

13. Karp, JS, Vishwanath, V, Geagan, M, Muehllehner, G, Pantel, A, Parma, M, et al.. Pennpet explorer: design and preliminary performance of a whole-body imager. J Nucl Med 2020;61:136–43.10.2967/jnumed.119.229997Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central

14. Stockhoff, M, Decuyper, M, Van Holen, R, Vandenberghe, S. High-resolution monolithic LYSO detector with 6-layer depth-of-interaction for clinical PET. Phys Med Biol 2021;66:155014.10.1088/1361-6560/ac1459Search in Google Scholar PubMed

15. Vandenberghe, S, Moskal, P, Karp, JS. State of the art in total body PET. EJNMMI Phys 2020;7:35.10.1186/s40658-020-00290-2Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central

16. Surti, S, Werner, M, Karp, J. Study of pet scanner designs using clinical metrics to optimize the scanner axial fov and crystal thickness. Phys Med Biol 2013;58:3995.10.1088/0031-9155/58/12/3995Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central

17. Moskal, P, Stępień, EŁ. Prospects and clinical perspectives of total-body PET imaging using plastic scintillators. Pet Clin 2020;15:439–52.10.1016/j.cpet.2020.06.009Search in Google Scholar PubMed

18. Beltrame, P, Bolle, E, Braem, A, Casella, C, Chesi, E, Clinthorne, N, et al.. The ax-pet demonstrator design, construction and characterization. Nucl Instrum Methods Phys Res Sect A Accel Spectrom Detect Assoc Equip 2011;654:546–59.10.1016/j.nima.2011.06.059Search in Google Scholar

19. Moskal, P, Salabura, P, Silarski, M, Smyrski, J, Zdebik, J, Zieliński, M. Novel detector systems for the positron emission tomography. Bio Algorithm Med Syst 2011;7:73.Search in Google Scholar

20. Moskal, P, Rundel, O, Alfs, D, Bednarski, T, Białas, P, Czerwiński, E, et al.. Time resolution of the plastic scintillator strips with matrix photomultiplier readout for J-PET tomograph. Phys Med Biol 2016;61:2025.10.1088/0031-9155/61/5/2025Search in Google Scholar PubMed

21. Moskal, P, Kowalski, P, Shopa, RY, Raczyński, L, Baran, J, Chug, N, et al.. Simulating NEMA characteristics of the modular total-body J-PET scanner – an economic total-body PET from plastic scintillators. Phys Med Biol 2021;66:175015.10.1088/1361-6560/ac16bdSearch in Google Scholar PubMed

22. Catana, C. The dawn of a new era in low-dose pet imaging. Radiology 2019;290:657–8.10.1148/radiol.2018182573Search in Google Scholar PubMed

23. Kaplan, S, Zhu, YM. Full-dose pet image estimation from low-dose pet image using deep learning: a pilot study. J Digit Imag 2018:1–6.10.1007/s10278-018-0150-3Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central

Received: 2021-11-25
Accepted: 2021-11-26
Published Online: 2021-12-22

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 7.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/bams-2021-0187/html
Scroll to top button