PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - von Schulthess, Gustav K.
AU  - Veit-Haibach, Patrick
TI  - Workflow Considerations in PET/MR Imaging
AID  - 10.2967/jnumed.113.129239
DP  - 2014 Jun 01
TA  - Journal of Nuclear Medicine
PG  - 19S--24S
VI  - 55
IP  - Supplement 2
4099  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/55/Supplement_2/19S.short
4100  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/55/Supplement_2/19S.full
SO  - J Nucl Med2014 Jun 01; 55
AB  - Many groups attempt to optimize imaging protocols on PET/MR imaging systems. Although research protocols may take as long as 60–90 min, much more efficient clinical workflows are needed to achieve cost-effective examination times of less than 1 h. Considering these difficulties, simultaneous PET/MR imaging is an intriguing research tool, but its clinical applications are uncertain or just beginning to emerge. However, unlike PET/CT, in which the options for various CT protocols are limited, the MR imaging portion of PET/MR imaging can be extended arbitrarily depending on the MR pulse sequences chosen. For PET/MR imaging to be complementary, feasible, and somewhat competitive with PET/CT, image acquisition times should ideally be limited to 30 min. The purposes of this article are to help the reader to understand the critical workflow issues in simultaneous PET/MR imaging in comparison with sequential PET/MR imaging and to learn how to optimize an imaging examination. Current knowledge toward this goal is summarized.