Development of new PET-MR scanning methods
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Acquisition and Reconstruction Techniques for Simultaneous PET-MR
IRAS ID
174549
Contact name
Paul K Marsden
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
A Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner produces images of how parts of the body, e.g. the brain, heart or a tumour, are functioning. A small amount radioactively labelled glucose is injected, and the radiation emitted is picked up by the scanner which creates an image of where the glucose has gone. A Computed Tomography (CT) scanner produces very detailed images, but can’t show how tissue is functioning. PET scanners are usually combined with CT in a ‘PET-CT’ scanner. A Magnetic Resonance (MR) scanner uses a powerful magnet to obtain detailed images. ‘PET-MR‘ scanners have recently become available and may be more useful than ‘PET-CT’ in some situations. The UK’s second PET-MR was recently installed at St Thomas’. As PET-MR is new there are many technical challenges. We will investigate three related areas.
1.Attenuation correction. The radiation from radioactive glucose may be stopped (‘attenuated’) by the body before it escapes, so regions deep in the body appear less bright. Correcting for this is straightforward for PET-CT but difficult for PET-MR. Some simple correction methods are available, but these don’t work well in all situations.
2. Correction for patient motion. As PET images take several minutes to obtain, they are often blurred because of movement (e.g. breathing). Rapid MR images taken throughout the PET scan can track the motion and be used to correct the blurring.
3. Image reconstruction. Radiation coming from radioactive glucose in the patient is detected by the PET scanner. This information is then converted (‘reconstructed’) into a PET image. Incorporating additional information available from MR should result in more accurate PET images.
We will perform PET-MR scans on up to 75 patients immediately after their standard clinical PET-CT scan (when they still contain radioactive glucose) in order to develop and evaluate the techniques above.
REC name
London - Dulwich Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/0978
Date of REC Opinion
31 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion