Abstract
Introduction: We investigated whether motion correction of gated 18F-fluoride PET-CT and PET-MR of the aortic valve could improve PET quantitation and image quality. Methods: A diffeomorphic, mass-preserving, anatomy-guided registration algorithm was used to align PET images from 4 cardiac gates, preserving all counts, and applied to PET-MR and PET-CT data of six patients with aortic stenosis. Measured Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNRs) and Target-to-Background Ratios (TBRs) were compared with the standard method of utilizing only the diastolic gate. Results: High-intensity aortic valve 18F-fluoride uptake was observed in all patients. Following motion correction, SNR and TBR increased compared to the diastolic gate (SNR 51.61 vs 21.0; TBR 2.85 vs 2.22) and summed data (SNR 51.61 vs 34.10, P = 0.028; TBR 2.85 vs 21.95, median, P = 0.028 for all). Furthermore, noise decreased from 0.105 (median, diastolic) to 0.042 (median, motion-corrected [P = 0.028]). Conclusion: Motion-correction of hybrid 18F-fluoride PET markedly improves SNR, resulting in improved image quality.
- Cardiology (clinical)
- Image Processing
- Molecular Imaging
- PET/CT
- PET/MRI
- 18F-Fluoride
- PET-CT
- PET-MR
- aortic stenosis
- motion correction
- Copyright © 2017 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Inc.