Harmonized PET Reconstructions for Cancer Clinical Trials

描述(申请人提供)：正电子发射断层扫描(PET)是一种固有的定量医学成像技术。当与提供关于恶性肿瘤状态的有价值的信息的放射性药物相结合时，在多中心临床试验中，PET是一种潜在的强大的成像手段，用于评估新的癌症治疗的反应。然而，商业PET扫描系统的制造商努力生成更高质量的诊断(即检测任务优化)图像以实现市场差异化，但不一定是最准确的定量数据，这是可以理解的。图像重建算法的最新进展提高了图像质量，但却矛盾地增加了PET扫描仪之间的定量差异。由此产生的定量准确性的差异混淆了多中心临床试验中的数据比较。已经开始了国家和国际努力，以标准化影响PET定量的协议。然而，在多中心试验中，协调图像重建方法和参数以解决PET图像精度显著变化的问题的努力有限。这种依赖于大小和扫描仪的可变性降低了临床试验的质量，因为它需要更多的患者收益和/或导致急需的癌症疗法的测试结果不确定。拟议的项目将通过将严格的NIST可追溯校准标准与开发行业支持的协调PET图像重建范例相结合来解决这一问题，以提供具有已知误差特征的定量准确和可重复的测量。该项目得到所有三家主要的PET/CT扫描仪制造商的支持，并通过核医学会的临床试验网络提供便利，并将主要由三家在定量成像方面拥有丰富经验并与这三家制造商建立了良好合作记录的领先的PET/CT学术机构执行。还将根据需要从其他PET中心收集数据，为17种不同的当前老式PET/CT扫描仪提供具有代表性的数据和协调的重建解决方案。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Positron emission tomography (PET) is an inherently quantitative medical imaging technique. When combined with radiopharmaceuticals that provide valuable information on the state of malignancies, PET is a potentially powerful imaging modality for assessing response to new cancer therapies in multi-center clinical trials. Manufacturers of commercial PET scanner systems, however, understandably strive to generate higher quality diagnostic (i.e. detection task optimized) images to achieve market differentiation, but not necessarily the most accurate quantitative data. Recent advances in image reconstruction algorithms enhance image quality, but have paradoxically increased quantitative differences between PET scanners. The resulting variations in quantitative accuracy confound the comparisons of data within multi-center clinical trials. National and international efforts have been initiated to standardize protocols that impact PET quantitation. However, there has been limited effort to harmonize image reconstruction methodologies and parameters to resolve the problem of the substantial variability in PET image accuracy in multi-center trials. This size- and scanner-dependent variability degrades the quality of clinical trials by requiring more patient accrual and/or leading to inconclusive results in tests of badly needed cancer therapies. The proposed project will solve this problem through a combination of rigorous NIST traceable calibration standards combined with the development of an industry-supported harmonized PET image reconstruction paradigm providing quantitatively accurate and reproducible measurements with known errors characteristics. The project is supported by all three major PET/CT scanner manufacturers, facilitated through the Society of Nuclear Medicine's Clinical Trials Network, and will be primarily performed by three leading PET/CT academic institutions with extensive experience in quantitative imaging and established track records of substantial collaboration with the three manufacturers. Data will also be collected from other PET centers as needed to provide representative data and harmonized reconstruction solutions for the full range of 17 different current vintage PET/CT scanners.