Improved correction for the tissue fraction effect in lung PET/CT imaging
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Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Recently, there has been an increased interest in imaging different pulmonary disorders using PET techniques. Previous work has shown, for static PET/CT, that air content in the lung influences reconstructed image values and that it is vital to correct for this 'tissue fraction effect' (TFE). In this paper, we extend this work to include the blood component and also investigate the TFE in dynamic imaging. CT imaging and PET kinetic modelling are used to determine fractional air and blood voxel volumes in six patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. These values are used to illustrate best and worst case scenarios when interpreting images without correcting for the TFE. In addition, the fractional volumes were used to determine correction factors for the SUV and the kinetic parameters. These were then applied to the patient images. The kinetic parameters K1 and Ki along with the static parameter SUV were all found to be affected by the TFE with both air and blood providing a significant contribution to the errors. Without corrections, errors range from 34-80% in the best case and 29-96% in the worst case. In the patient data, without correcting for the TFE, regions of high density (fibrosis) appeared to have a higher uptake than lower density (normal appearing tissue), however this was reversed after air and blood correction. The proposed correction methods are vital for quantitative and relative accuracy. Without these corrections, images may be misinterpreted.
Date Issued
2015-09-08
Date Acceptance
2015-07-17
Citation
Physics in Medicine and Biology, 2015, 60 (18), pp.7387-7402
ISSN
1361-6560
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Start Page
7387
End Page
7402
Journal / Book Title
Physics in Medicine and Biology
Volume
60
Issue
18
Copyright Statement
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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Subjects
Aged
Case-Control Studies
Computer Simulation
Female
Humans
Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Male
Positron-Emission Tomography
Tomography, X-Ray Computed
Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
0299 Other Physical Sciences
0903 Biomedical Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
7387