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）的结合创造了一个强大的混合成像模式，这是由于PET的灵敏分子成像能力与MRI的高质量解剖、连接和功能成像的协同作用。这对于大脑成像尤其如此，其中两种模式的组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，混合同步PET/MRI仅在非常少数的成像中心可用。此外，这些系统被设计用于全身肿瘤成像应用，因此对于脑成像并不理想。 我们建议开发一种大脑PET成像系统，可以改造现有的MRI，创建同时进行PET/MRI神经成像的能力。与现有的全身PET/MRI相比，BrainPET插入物将是低成本的，同时由于几何形状被定制为对人脑进行成像而提供改进的空间分辨率和检测效率。该项目将是马尼托巴大学和Cubresa公司的研究人员之间的合作，一家位于温尼伯的医疗器械公司。这项合作建立在先前成功创建用于混合PET/MRI的Cubresa NuPET小动物PET插入系统的基础上，该系统基于马尼托巴大学进行的研究。在该应用中，成功的NuPET系统背后的技术将被扩展以适用于人类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.