title: A methodology for specifying PET VOI's using multimodality techniques.
abstract: Volume-of-interest (VOI) extraction for radionuclide and anatomical measurements requires correct identification and delineation of the anatomical feature being studied. We have developed a toolset for specifying three-dimensional (3-D) VOI's on a multislice positron emission tomography (PET) dataset. The software is particularly suited for specifying cerebral cortex VOI's which represent a particular gyrus or deep brain structure. A registered 3-D magnetic resonance image (MRI) dataset is used to provide high-resolution anatomical information, both as oblique two-dimensional (2-D) sections and as volume renderings of a segmented cortical surface. VOI's are specified indirectly in two dimensions by drawing a stack of 2-D regions on the MRI data. The regions are tiled together to form closed triangular mesh surface models, which are subsequently transformed into the observation space of the PET scanner. Quantification by this method allows calculation of radionuclide activity in the VOI's, as well as their statistical uncertainties and correlations. The methodology for this type of analysis and validation results are presented.
authors.affiliation: Center for Functional Imaging, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA. gjklein@ibl.gov
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Teng
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Jagust
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Eberling
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Acharya
authors.forename: B W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Reutter
authors.forename: R H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Huesman
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D001330:Electronic Data Processing; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed / Q000379:methods*