PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Bernd J. Pichler AU - Hans F. Wehrl AU - Martin S. Judenhofer TI - Latest Advances in Molecular Imaging Instrumentation AID - 10.2967/jnumed.108.045880 DP - 2008 Jun 01 TA - Journal of Nuclear Medicine PG - 5S--23S VI - 49 IP - Suppl 2 4099 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/49/Suppl_2/5S.short 4100 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/49/Suppl_2/5S.full SO - J Nucl Med2008 Jun 01; 49 AB - This review concentrates on the latest advances in molecular imaging technology, including PET, MRI, and optical imaging. In PET, significant improvements in tumor detection and image resolution have been achieved by introducing new scintillation materials, iterative image reconstruction, and correction methods. These advances enabled the first clinical scanners capable of time-of-flight detection and incorporating point-spread-function reconstruction to compensate for depth-of-interaction effects. In the field of MRI, the most important developments in recent years have mainly been MRI systems with higher field strengths and improved radiofrequency coil technology. Hyperpolarized imaging, functional MRI, and MR spectroscopy provide molecular information in vivo. A special focus of this review article is multimodality imaging and, in particular, the emerging field of combined PET/MRI.