PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Osama Mawlawi AU - Joseph Meier TI - Characterization of continuous bed motion effects on patient breathing pattern in PET/CT imaging DP - 2019 May 01 TA - Journal of Nuclear Medicine PG - 1189--1189 VI - 60 IP - supplement 1 4099 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/60/supplement_1/1189.short 4100 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/60/supplement_1/1189.full SO - J Nucl Med2019 May 01; 60 AB - 1189Objectives: Continuous bed motion (CBM) has recently been introduced as an alternative to step and shoot (SS) for PET data acquisition with several reported advantages including improved image uniformity and more flexibility in prescribing the imaging range. With CBM the patient/bed is continuously advanced into the scanner at a preset speed compared to an interleaved motion in SS depending on the number of bed positions to cover the patient imaging range. Our aim was to investigate the effects of bed motion (CBM versus SS) on patient breathing regularity, patient experience, and subjective image quality. Methods: 100 patients referred for PET/CT imaging were scanned on a mCT 4 ring system (mean age: 56.2 yrs, injected activity: 352 MBq FDG, and 68 min post injection). 50 patients were imaged in CBM and 50 in SS. In each imaging mode, patients were grouped in 5 BMI ranges with 10 patients per group and the scan duration per imaging mode was matched. Patient respiratory waveform (RW) was recorded during data acquisition using the Anzai system and was analyzed for the entire duration of the bed position covering the abdominal-thoracic region which exhibits the most amount of respiratory motion. Analysis of RW was done by measuring the: 1) coefficient of variation (CV) of respiratory cycle period, 2) CV of respiratory cycle amplitude, 3) Respiratory frequency prominence (RFP) defined as the density ratio of recorded normal breathing frequencies (0.1-1 Hz) to the overall measured breathing frequencies during the acquisition, and 4) width of the HD-Chest® window that contains 35% of the breathing duty cycle; and the results between CBM and SS were compared. This analysis was repeated for the first and last 30 seconds of that bed position and the results were compared for both CBM and SS modes. Comparison of these results was performed on the overall population as well as per BMI group. Additionally all patients were given a questionnaire to document their experience with respect to bed movement. Finally, all PET images were presented in a randomized order to 2 nuclear medicine physicians that were blinded to the acquisition mode and scored the resultant image quality on a continuous scale ranging from 1-5. Results: For all RW analysis methods, there was no statistically significant difference (P> 0.05) between CBM and SS. This result was consistent independent of whether the RW was from the entire bed position or the first/last 30 seconds of that bed position, or whether the analyses were done on a population basis or BMI category. Results of the questionnaire showed that patients on average had better experience with CBM as compared to SS (P<0.05). The resultant image quality scores on the other hand showed no discernable image quality differences between SS and CBM images by both physicians (P>0.05). Conclusions: PET acquisition in CBM mode does not impact the regularity of the patient RW thereby suggesting that methodologies developed for motion compensation in PET/CT imaging should not be impacted if the PET data was acquired in SS or CBM. Overall, patients preferred CBM compared to SS but the resultant images had no discernable differences by the interpreting physicians.