Validation of quantitative accuracy of the post-injection transmission-based and transmissionless attenuation correction techniques in neurological FDG-PET.
BACKGROUND
We evaluated the quantitative accuracy of the post-injection transmission-based segmented attenuation correction (SAC) technique and transmissionless calculated attenuation correction (CAC) technique in both 2D and 3D scanning for the brain, and compared the results with those obtained using the pre-injection transmission-based measured attenuation correction (MAC) technique, which is generally accepted as the 'gold standard'.


METHODS
We examined [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) on both a cylindrical phantom and in 10 patients with epilepsy. The statistical analyses were performed using both the region of interest (ROI) method and statistical parametric mapping (SPM).


RESULTS
In the ROI analysis, [18F] activity concentration values obtained by the SAC technique were well correlated with those obtained by the MAC technique (2D, R2=0.94; 3D, R2=0.98; P<0.001), although these values were underestimated over the entire brain. The CAC technique was also found to have significant correlation with the MAC technique (2D, R2=0.84; 3D, R2=0.86; P<0.001), but this technique showed apparent overestimation or underestimation in several parts of the brain. In the SPM analysis, there were no significant differences between the SAC and MAC technique, while those values obtained by the CAC technique were significantly lower in the parieto-occipital region and higher in the lower frontal region (P<0.001, uncorrected).


CONCLUSIONS
The SAC technique was superior to the CAC technique in both 2D and 3D scanning, although we found that both the SAC and CAC techniques had some problems in quantitative evaluation. We considered that the SAC technique may yield adequate qualitative measurements of the [18F] activity concentration value after global normalization.
Kaneko
Koichiro
K
Department of Clinical Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences; Laboratory of Molecular Imaging Sciences, School of Medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. kkaneko-kyu@umin.ac.jp
Kuwabara
Yasuo
Y
Sasaki
Masayuki
M
Koga
Hirofumi
H
Abe
Koichiro
K
Baba
Shingo
S
Hayashi
Kazutaka
K
Honda
Hiroshi
H
D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 / Q000008:administration & dosage; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D007275:Injections, Intravenous; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals / Q000008:administration & dosage; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013382:Subtraction Technique
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18