Time-of-Flight PET for Improved Whole-Body Imaging

 描述（由申请人提供）：本申请是R 01-CA-113941的竞争性更新，旨在满足医疗保健需求，特别是癌症领域的需求。我们项目的总体目标是研究和改进飞行时间（TOF）正电子发射断层扫描（PET）成像，并为下一代TOF PET成像仪器开发硬件和软件技术。已证明在PET重建中包含TOF信息可通过更好的信噪比、更快和更均匀的收敛、更好的病变可检测性和更准确的量化来提高图像质量。这些指标对TOF分辨率的依赖性尚未充分量化为现实的分布，所以我们将研究这一点，以实现TOF的最大潜力。TOF PET的先进技术已经在开发中，我们设计了这个应用程序来进行这项工作。在这次更新中，我们建议继续采用系统的方法进行图像改进，包括开发具有改进的时间和空间分辨率的新TOF探测器，完成和评估波形采样电子设备以从每次相互作用中提取最大信息并更准确地控制校准，开发数据校正方法以提高定量精度，并针对成像条件的增加的动态范围来评估TOF成像。我们将继续研究TOF对临床FDG成像在病变可检测性、定量准确性和精确度方面的影响，并将扩大研究范围，以评估TOF对低计数图像的影响，目的是降低临床成像的FDG剂量，因为人们越来越关注诊断辐射剂量。TOF实现的低剂量（或计数统计）的更好性能也将改善成像，用于使用寿命更长的示踪剂的扩展临床研究应用，这可能导致更低的计数数据集。我们的项目将包括良好控制的体模研究和患者研究，以便我们可以量化TOF在比以前研究的更广泛的临床重要条件下的益处，并且我们可以确定从信号检测到图像生成的哪些因素对于未来改进TOF PET最重要。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application is a competitive renewal of R01-CA-113941 and seeks to address the needs of heath care, particularly in the area of cancer. The overall goal of our project is to investigate and improve time-of-flight (TOF) positron emission tomographic (PET) imaging and to develop technology, both hardware and software, for the next generation of TOF PET imaging instruments. Inclusion of TOF information in PET reconstructions has been demonstrated to improve image quality through better signal-to-noise, faster and more uniform convergence, better lesion detectability, and more accurate quantification. The dependence of these metrics on TOF resolution has not been adequately quantified for realistic distributions, so we will study this to realize the maximum potential of TOF. Advanced technology for TOF PET is already under development, and we designed this application to carry on this work. In this renewal we propose to continue a systematic approach to image improvement that includes specific aims to develop new TOF detectors with improved timing and spatial resolutions, complete and evaluate waveform sampling electronics to extract maximal information from each interaction and to control calibrations more accurately, develop data correction methods to improve quantitative accuracy, and evaluate TOF imaging for an increased dynamic range of imaging conditions. We will continue to study the impact of TOF on clinical FDG imaging in terms of lesion detectability, quantitative accuracy and precision, and we will expand our investigation to assess the impact of TOF on lower count images with the goal of reducing FDG dose for clinical imaging, given the growing concern regarding diagnostic radiation doses. Better performance with low doses (or count statistics) enabled by TOF will also improve imaging for the expanding clinical research applications using longer-lived tracers that may result in lower count datasets. Our project will include well- controlled phantom studies and patient studies so that we can quantify the benefit of TOF for a wider range of clinically important conditions than previously studied, and so that we can determine which factors, from signal detection through image generation, are most important for improved TOF PET for the future.