The ECAT ART Scanner for Positron Emission Tomography. 2. Research and Clinical Applications.
The ECAT ART is a low-cost positron emission tomography (PET) scanner design for which increasing interest in the use of PET, and specifically (18)FDG PET for oncological studies, has stimulated a demand. Although targeted primarily for the clinical market, the performance of the ART scanner can also meet the demands of a research environment where, in addition to [(18)F], more challenging, shorter-lived isotopes such as [(11)C], [(13)N] and [(15)O] are used. The ART has been used successfully to perform quantitative (18)FDG studies, blood flow measurements with [(15)O]water, and brain mapping studies with [(15)O]water (activation). In the clinical arena, it has been used for a wide range of applications, including epilepsy, whole-body imaging in oncology, and for cardiac viability studies. This paper explores the capability of the ECAT ART scanner to meet the demands of PET studies in both a research and clinical arena.