Development of a PET insert for hybrid PET/MR neuroimaging

正电子发射断层扫描（PET）与磁共振成像（MRI）的结合创造了一种强大的混合成像模式，这是由于PET的敏感分子成像能力与MRI的高质量解剖、连接和功能成像的协同作用。对于大脑成像尤其如此，这两种模式的结合为理解和量化神经退行性疾病中大脑结构和功能的变化提供了独特的见解。不幸的是，由于目前可用的完全集成的PET/MRI系统的高资本成本，混合同时PET/MRI仅在极少数成像中心可用。此外，这些系统是为全身肿瘤成像应用而设计的，因此不适合脑部成像。我们建议开发一种脑部PET成像系统，可以对现有的MRI进行改造，从而具有同时进行PET/MRI神经成像的能力。与现有的全身PET/MRI相比，BrainPET插入体成本较低，同时由于其几何形状适合于对人脑进行成像，因此可以提供更高的空间分辨率和检测效率。这个项目将是马尼托巴大学和Cubresa公司（一家位于温尼伯的医疗设备公司）的研究人员之间的合作项目。这项合作建立在先前成功的努力基础上，在曼尼托巴大学进行的研究基础上，创建了用于混合PET/MRI的Cubresa NuPET小动物PET插入系统。在这个应用中，成功的NuPET系统背后的技术将被扩展到适用于人类BrainPET系统，从而使临床设备能够用于任何现有的临床MRI系统。

The combination of positron emission tomography (PET) with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) creates a powerful hybrid imaging modality due to the synergy of the sensitive molecular imaging capability of PET with the high quality anatomical, connective and functional imaging of MRI. This is particularly true for imaging of the brain, where the combination of the two modalities opens unique insights into understanding and quantifying changes in brain structure and function in neurodegenerative disease. Unfortunately, hybrid simultaneous PET/MRI is only available at a very small number of imaging centres due to the high capital costs of the currently available fully integrated PET/MRI systems. In addition, these systems are designed for whole-body oncology imaging applications, and thus are not ideal for brain imaging. We propose to develop a brain PET imaging system that can be retrofit to an existing MRI, creating the capability to perform simultaneous PET/MRI neuroimaging. As compared with existing whole body PET/MRI, the BrainPET insert will be low cost, while providing improved spatial resolution and detection efficiency due to the geometry being tailored to imaging the human brain. This project will be a partnership between researchers at the University of Manitoba and Cubresa, Inc., a medical device company based in Winnipeg. This collaboration builds on a previous successful effort in creating the Cubresa NuPET small animal PET insert system for hybrid PET/MRI that was based research conducted at the University of Manitoba. In this application, the technology behind the successful NuPET system will be scaled to be suitable for a human BrainPET system, leading to a clinical device capable of being used in any existing clinical MRI system.