TY - JOUR T1 - <strong>Optimizing and Validating</strong><strong> Reduced PET Volume Overlap </strong><strong>in 18F-FDG Oncology Wholebody PET/CT to Improve</strong> <strong>Speed and Patient Comfort</strong> JF - Journal of Nuclear Medicine JO - J Nucl Med SP - 1271 LP - 1271 VL - 56 IS - supplement 3 AU - Jun Zhang AU - Katherine Binzel AU - Xiaoli Liu AU - Mona Natwa AU - Bin Zhang AU - Zhiqiang Hu AU - Michelle Knopp AU - Chi-hua Tung AU - Michael Knopp Y1 - 2015/05/01 UR - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/56/supplement_3/1271.abstract N2 - 1271 Objectives To optimize and validate reducing PET acquisition volume overlap in 18F-FDG Time-of-Flight oncology wholebody PET/CT to save table time and improve patient comfortMethods An integrated pre-clinical optimization (beagles) and clinical validation (human patients) trial was initiated to proof the feasibility of reducing PET volume overlap from established system default. In human studies, additional reduced overlap PET/CT sweeps were acquired immidiately after the default overlap standard of care imaging. Phantom evaluations were performed prior to pre-clinical studies. All imaging were acquired on a Gemini TF 64 PET/CT scanner (Philips Healthcare). Reduced PET overlaps (40%, 33%, 27%, 20%, 13% and no overlap) were investigated and compared to the system default (53%). Image quality was blindly reviewed by multiple readers using a visual scoring criteria and a quantitative SUV assessment. Patients were asked to comment on comfortResults 20 beagle subjects were imaged. In the ongoing trial, 10 patients are currently completed and the basis this assessment. All wholebody PET exams demonstrated no impact on the visual grade with overlaps &gt;13%. In the matched comparison, the best visual scores were found for studies using the default 53%, 40% and 27% overlaps. Reducing overlap to 27% for oncology patients saved an average of ~40% acquisition time (11min) compared to using the default overlap (18min). No significant SUV variances were found between PETs of 27% to 53% overlaps for cerebellum, lung, heart, aorta, liver, fat, muscle, bone marrow, thighs and target lesions (p&gt;0.05), except expected variability in kidneys and bladderConclusions This trial demonstrates by combined pre-clinical, phantom and clinical validation that a reduction of PET volume overlap to 27% (half of the system default) can be implemented without degradation of image quality or quantification. This approach can reduce table time by 40% and additionally improves patient comfort.Research Support Ohio Third Frontier Innovation Platform grant TECH 10-012 and 13-060 ER -