%0 Journal Article %A Frank DiFilippo %A Sagar Patel %A Kewal Asosingh %A Serpil Erzurum %T Small animal imaging using a clinical PET/CT and super-resolution %D 2011 %J Journal of Nuclear Medicine %P 208-208 %V 52 %N supplement 1 %X 208 Objectives Although commercial small animal PET/CT scanners are available, the large installed base of clinical PET/CT scanners presents a low cost opportunity for research use, provided that image quality is acceptable. Clinical PET/CT reconstruction software includes modeling the point spread function (PSF) to improve spatial resolution. We investigated image quality of phantom and mouse scans attainable on a clinical PET/CT using vendor software versus "super-resolution" (SR) techniques. Methods FDG PET/CT scans of a NEMA NU-4 small animal phantom and a 28 g mouse were acquired with a clinical scanner (Biograph mCT). The phantom or mouse was placed on an animal bed having three motorized linear stages. In each case, two sets of PET data were acquired, first a 16-minute static scan, followed by a SR scan of 16 one-minute frames while stepping the animal bed between frames to subsample data below the intrinsic PET resolution. The static images were reconstructed with 1mm voxels, with PSF modeling and without ("NoPSF"). The super-resolution images were processed by Richardson-Lucy deconvolution of the 16 individual frames. Results Most NU-4 rods were well visualized (5, 4, 3, and 2 mm) in the SR images, whereas the NoPSF and PSF images contained artifacts. Recovery coefficients for the 5 and 4 mm rods were 46% & 23% for NoPSF, 65% & 25% for PSF, and 53% & 36% for SR. Gibbs ringing artifact was significant in PSF images but was better controlled in the SR images. The mouse FDG SR images showed good image quality with clear uptake in the major organs. Conclusions Image quality is significantly improved with the SR technique. The combined data from multiple spatial locations compensates for inaccuracies in image reconstruction. Although the image quality does not rival that of dedicated small animal PET scanner, it is acceptable for many small animal studies. The SR technique may also be applied to small animal PET scanners to further improve those images as well. Research Support American Asthma Foundation (Sandler) and NIH RC1-HL09930 %U