UNLABELLED: Quantification of tumor activity is used to predict prognosis and discriminate benign from malignant lesions identified by PET. Accurate quantitation of small lesions requires correction for the partial volume effects. Such a correction is often based on the recovery coefficient (RC), which depends on the lesion size, the object-to-background ratio (OBR) and physical properties of the media. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether a model-based optimization method to simultaneously recover the size and the activity concentration of small spheroids could improve estimates of lesion radioactivity when object size is unknown. For reference, we compared our method with a widely used approach, RC correction, that requires the object size to be known. METHODS: A three-dimensional, spatially varying, object size- and contrast-dependent Gaussian model of the point spread function (PSF) of an ECAT EXACT was developed. The observed dependence of the PSF on random coincidences and measured-peak/background activity were included in the PSF using three adjusting factors. Size and radioactivity concentration of a spheroid were estimated by adjusting size and concentration until model output best matched the image data. Elliptic and circular phantoms both containing seven hot spheroids, with OBRs ranging from 5.6 to 0 background, were evaluated. RESULTS: The proposed quantification method reduced the activity error by 11%-63% of the error obtained without correction. The greatest error reduction occurred for small spheroids. The average error in radius estimation ranged from 2% to 48%, wherein the smallest spheroid produced the largest errors. For spheroids with diameters from 8 to 22 mm, Student t test (paired, one-tail) showed the proposed method significantly improved accuracy (P < 0.05) in comparison with the RC method and also in comparison with optimization without the three adjusting factors. CONCLUSION: The model-based optimization method improved estimation of radioactivity concentration over that corrected by the RC method and that made without any correction. It also provided accurate estimation of size for spheroids larger than 6 mm in diameter.
UNLABELLED: Quantification of tumor activity is used to predict prognosis and discriminate benign from malignant lesions identified by PET. Accurate quantitation of small lesions requires correction for the partial volume effects. Such a correction is often based on the recovery coefficient (RC), which depends on the lesion size, the object-to-background ratio (OBR) and physical properties of the media. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether a model-based optimization method to simultaneously recover the size and the activity concentration of small spheroids could improve estimates of lesion radioactivity when object size is unknown. For reference, we compared our method with a widely used approach, RC correction, that requires the object size to be known. METHODS: A three-dimensional, spatially varying, object size- and contrast-dependent Gaussian model of the point spread function (PSF) of an ECAT EXACT was developed. The observed dependence of the PSF on random coincidences and measured-peak/background activity were included in the PSF using three adjusting factors. Size and radioactivity concentration of a spheroid were estimated by adjusting size and concentration until model output best matched the image data. Elliptic and circular phantoms both containing seven hot spheroids, with OBRs ranging from 5.6 to 0 background, were evaluated. RESULTS: The proposed quantification method reduced the activity error by 11%-63% of the error obtained without correction. The greatest error reduction occurred for small spheroids. The average error in radius estimation ranged from 2% to 48%, wherein the smallest spheroid produced the largest errors. For spheroids with diameters from 8 to 22 mm, Student t test (paired, one-tail) showed the proposed method significantly improved accuracy (P < 0.05) in comparison with the RC method and also in comparison with optimization without the three adjusting factors. CONCLUSION: The model-based optimization method improved estimation of radioactivity concentration over that corrected by the RC method and that made without any correction. It also provided accurate estimation of size for spheroids larger than 6 mm in diameter.
Authors: Emilio Bombardieri; Cumali Aktolun; Richard P Baum; Angelika Bishof-Delaloye; John Buscombe; Jean François Chatal; Lorenzo Maffioli; Roy Moncayo; Luc Mortelmans; Sven N Reske Journal: Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging Date: 2003-12 Impact factor: 9.236
Authors: Mathieu Hatt; John A Lee; Charles R Schmidtlein; Issam El Naqa; Curtis Caldwell; Elisabetta De Bernardi; Wei Lu; Shiva Das; Xavier Geets; Vincent Gregoire; Robert Jeraj; Michael P MacManus; Osama R Mawlawi; Ursula Nestle; Andrei B Pugachev; Heiko Schöder; Tony Shepherd; Emiliano Spezi; Dimitris Visvikis; Habib Zaidi; Assen S Kirov Journal: Med Phys Date: 2017-05-18 Impact factor: 4.071
Authors: Stephen C Moore; Sudeepti Southekal; Mi-Ae Park; Sarah J McQuaid; Marie Foley Kijewski; Stefan P Müller Journal: IEEE Trans Med Imaging Date: 2011-09-29 Impact factor: 10.048
Authors: Eleonora Vanzi; Maria Teresa De Cristofaro; Silvia Ramat; Barbara Sotgia; Mario Mascalchi; Andreas Robert Formiconi Journal: Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging Date: 2007-03-28 Impact factor: 9.236