Simultaneous emission and transmission imaging for PET-MRI using time-of-flight information

TL;DRAbstract

Objectives: Attenuation correction is one of the major challenges in the development of simultaneous PET-MR scanners. Predicting attenuation values from MR images is difficult because in most MRI sequences, air and bone do not produce any signal, while the attenuation coefficients are completely different. Different groups have proposed to combine MRI images with information from atlases or to use slow sequences like UTE. Here we propose to obtain the necessary transmission information simultaneously with the emission data using a TOF-PET system. Using a fast MR image as priori information we can limit the effect of low statistics due to short transmission time. Methods: The transmission scan was simulated using GATE simulator by placing a hollow cylinder (100 MBq) of FDG inside the GEMINI TOF-PET scanner. The lung region of the NCAT phantom was scanned (4 minutes). The TOF information was used to separate the coincidences coming from the patient and the transmission cylinder. The obje

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