Abstract
Time-of-flight (TOF) PET was initially introduced in the early days of PET. TOF PET scanners developed in the 1980s had limited sensitivity and spatial resolution, operated in 2D mode with septa, and used analytic image reconstruction methods. Current generation of TOF PET scanners have the highest sensitivity and spatial resolution ever achieved in commercial whole-body PET, operate in fully-3D mode, and use iterative reconstruction with full system modeling. Previously, it was shown that TOF provides a gain in image signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) that is proportional to the square root of the object size divided by the system timing resolution. With oncologic studies being the primary application of PET, more recent work has shown that in modern TOF PET scanners there is an improved trade-off between lesion contrast, image noise, and total imaging time, leading to a combination of improved lesion detectability, reduced scan time or injected dose, and more accurate and precise lesion uptake measurement. The benefit of TOF PET is also higher for heavier patients, which leads to a more uniform clinical performance over all patient sizes.
- Copyright © 2014 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Inc.