Dortmund 2021 – scientific programme

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ST: Fachverband Strahlen- und Medizinphysik

ST 5: Medical Imaging

ST 5.6: Talk

Tuesday, March 16, 2021, 17:15–17:30, STa

EXPLORER -- Opportunities and Challenges in Total Body PET Imaging — •Reimund Bayerlein, Benjamin Spencer, Eric Berg, Negar Omidvardi, Elizabeth Li, Xuezhu Zhang, Enette Mae Revilla, Jinyi Qi, Simon Cherry, and Ramsey Badawi — University of California Davis, US

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a powerful tool for molecular imaging, promoting enhancements in biological research and clinical care. However, the sensitivity of conventional PET scanners is limited by the short axial field of view (AFOV). This has been overcome by the EXPLORER total-body PET scanner which has a 194cm AFOV resulting in a 40-fold increase in sensitivity. This enables improved image quality, or reduced scan duration, or reduced radioactivity in the subject. It also permits total-body dynamic scanning, allowing total-body parametric imaging using kinetic modeling. Total-body PET therefore constitutes a ground-breaking tool to address open questions in biology and medicine. However, the large number of detectors and the widened acceptance angle dramatically increase the data sizes, setting higher demands on image reconstruction algorithms and hardware. Standard methods for attenuation and count-rate dependent data corrections are challenged, since there are a larger number of high-obliquity lines of response, which have stronger attenuation, and the dynamic range of the scanner is substantially increased. And with the whole body in the FOV, motion correction is more important. This contribution will describe the scanner design and the most pressing physics challenges and opportunities for EXPLORER.