title: Feasibility of simultaneous PET/MR of the carotid artery: first clinical experience and comparison to PET/CT.
abstract: The study aimed at comparing PET/MR to PET/CT for imaging the carotid arteries in patients with known increased risk of atherosclerosis. Six HIV-positive men underwent sequential PET/MR and PET/CT of the carotid arteries after injection of 400 MBq of (18)F-FDG. PET/MR was performed a median of 131 min after injection. Subsequently,PET/CT was performed. Regions of interest (ROI) were drawn slice by slice to include the carotid arteries and standardized uptake values (SUV) were calculated from both datasets independently. Quantitative comparison of (18)F-FDG uptake revealed a high congruence between PET data acquired using the PET/MR system compared to the PET/CT system. The mean difference for SUVmean was -0.18 (p < 0.001) and -0.14 for SUVmax (p < 0.001) indicating a small but significant bias towards lower values using the PET/MR system. The 95% limits of agreement were -0.55 to 0.20 for SUVmean and -0.93 to 0.65 for SUVmax. The image quality of the PET/MR allowed for delineation of the carotid vessel wall. The correlations between (18)F-FDG uptake from ROI including both vessel wall and vessel lumen to ROI including only the wall were strong (r = 0.98 for SUVmean and r = 1.00 for SUVmax) indicating that the luminal (18)F-FDG content had minimal influence on the values. The study shows for the first time that simultaneous PET/MR of the carotid arteries is feasible in patients with increased risk of atherosclerosis. Quantification of (18)F-FDG uptake correlated well between PET/MR and PET/CT despite difference in method of PET attenuation correction, reconstruction algorithm, and detector technology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine and PET, Rigshopitalet University Hospital & Cluster for Molecular Imaging, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark ; Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Bispebjerg University Hospital Denmark.
authors.forename: Rasmus S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Ripa
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Knudsen
authors.forename: Anne Mette F
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Hag
authors.forename: Anne-Mette
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Lebech
authors.forename: Annika
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Loft
authors.forename: Sune H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.forename: Adam E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: von Benzon
authors.forename: Liselotte
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Højgaard
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kjær
keywords: Atherosclerosis; PET/MR; hybrid scanners; magnetic resonance imaging; positron emission tomography
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