Technologies to advance hybrid multimodality positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging

在过去的十年中，通过引入混合组合正电子发射断层扫描（PET）与X射线计算机断层扫描（CT）和单光子发射计算机断层扫描（SPECT）与CT，临床核医学的实践发生了革命性的变化。这种功能和解剖成像的高度协同组合允许改进许多疾病的诊断和分期，包括癌症和阿尔茨海默病。由于MRI相对于CT的优势（如无辐射剂量和精细的软组织对比度），预计未来十年将广泛采用混合PET和SPECT与磁共振成像（MRI）。在此应用中，我们建议开发技术，将推进混合PET/MRI的能力。我将与我的学生和博士后研究员一起，基于新的硅光电倍增管（SiPM）技术，为PET成像构建紧凑的高分辨率探测器，该技术与MR兼容，并将实现同步PET/MRI成像。我们将创建工具来促进PET探测器表征的过程，研究创建低成本成像系统的方法，并实现高通道数电子设备，从而能够构建我们的原型PET/MR系统。这些技术将改进临床和临床前成像系统的成像系统设计。临床成像系统的这些改进将通过提高图像的诊断准确性而使患者护理受益，并且临床前动物成像系统的改进将允许对人类疾病的动物模型的更好理解，从而减少开发新疗法所需的时间。

The practice of clinical nuclear medicine has been revolutionized in the past decade through the introduction of hybrid combined positron emission tomography (PET) with x-ray computed tomography (CT) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with CT. This highly synergistic combination of functional and anatomical imaging allows for improved diagnosis and staging of many diseases including cancer and Alzheimer's Disease. It is anticipated that the coming decade will see the widespread adoption of hybrid PET and SPECT with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) due to the advantages of MRI over CT such as no radiation dose and exquisite soft tissue contrast. In this application we propose to develop technologies that will advance the capabilities of hybrid PET/MRI. Together with my students and post-doctoral fellows, I will construct compact, high resolution detectors for PET imaging, based on new silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) technology, that are MR compatible and will enable simultaneous PET/MRI imaging. We will create tools to facilitate the process of PET detector characterization, examine approaches to create low-cost imaging systems and implement high channel count electronics that will enable the construction of our prototype PET/MR system. These technologies will result in improved imaging system design for both clinical and pre-clinical imaging systems. These improvements in clinical imaging systems will benefit patient care through improved diagnostic accuracy of images and the improvements in preclinical animal imaging systems will allow for an improved understanding of animal models of human disease, reducing the time required to develop new therapeutics.