RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Cardiac and Respiratory Motion Correction for Simultaneous Cardiac PET/MR
JF Journal of Nuclear Medicine
JO J Nucl Med
FD Society of Nuclear Medicine
SP 846
OP 852
DO 10.2967/jnumed.115.171728
VO 58
IS 5
A1 Kolbitsch, Christoph
A1 Ahlman, Mark A.
A1 Davies-Venn, Cynthia
A1 Evers, Robert
A1 Hansen, Michael
A1 Peressutti, Devis
A1 Marsden, Paul
A1 Kellman, Peter
A1 Bluemke, David A.
A1 Schaeffter, Tobias
YR 2017
UL http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/58/5/846.abstract
AB Cardiac PET is a versatile imaging technique providing important diagnostic information about ischemic heart diseases. Respiratory and cardiac motion of the heart can strongly impair image quality and therefore diagnostic accuracy of cardiac PET scans. The aim of this study was to investigate a new cardiac PET/MR approach providing respiratory and cardiac motion–compensated MR and PET images in less than 5 min. Methods: Free-breathing 3-dimensional MR data were acquired and retrospectively binned into multiple respiratory and cardiac motion states. Three-dimensional cardiac and respiratory motion fields were obtained with a nonrigid registration algorithm and used in motion-compensated MR and PET reconstructions to improve image quality. The improvement in image quality and diagnostic accuracy of the technique was assessed in simultaneous 18F-FDG PET/MR scans of a canine model of myocardial infarct and was demonstrated in a human subject. Results: MR motion fields were successfully used to compensate for in vivo cardiac motion, leading to improvements in full width at half maximum of the canine myocardium of 13% ± 5%, similar to cardiac gating but with a 90% ± 57% higher contrast-to-noise ratio between myocardium and blood. Motion correction led to an improvement in MR image quality in all subjects, with an increase in sharpness of the canine coronary arteries of 85% ± 72%. A functional assessment showed good agreement with standard MR cine scans with a difference in ejection fraction of −2% ± 3%. MR-based respiratory and cardiac motion information was used to improve the PET image quality of a human in vivo scan. Conclusion: The MR technique presented here provides both diagnostic and motion information that can be used to improve MR and PET image quality. Reliable respiratory and cardiac motion correction could make cardiac PET results more reproducible.