Conveners
Clinical motivation for pushing TOFPET CTR resolution ≤100ps
- Paul Rene Michel Lecoq
Clinical motivation for pushing TOFPET CTR resolution ≤100ps
- John Prior
The benefits of measuring the time difference between the arrival of the two photons from positron annihilation was recognized from the very early days of PET imaging in the 1960s. However, at that time the scintillator light decay time and the timing of the electronics was insufficient to implement a measurement of time-of-flight (TOF) that could have a beneficial effect on the image quality....
This presentation will make an overview of the present clinical TOF PET imaging and its benefit brought about by lowering the TOF CTR slightly above 200 ps. These advantages will be even more apparent when pushing for ≤ 100 ps TOF PET CTR paving the ground for having a 10-ps TOF PET challenge.
The radiotracer principle, as first introduced by George Hevesy in 1923 [1], and supported by sophisticated radiation imaging systems, highly specific radiotracers, and mathematical modeling, has been a powerful tool with broad uses in biomedical research. Applications span animal models, and in vivo human imaging in many disease states and the tracer method has been used to interrogate and...
The paradigm shift in medicine from treatment of acute and/or advanced disease to very early diagnosis and even prevention in cancer, neurodegenerative as well as cardiac fields, puts more stringent requirements on PET imaging both in terms of sensitivity as well as specificity. Likewise, recent developments in Targeted Radionuclide Therapy (TRT) where theragnostic pairs are used to tailor a...
With the aging of the global population, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's are becoming more common. In addition, PET is a useful clinical tool for accurately visualizing the presence of biomarkers in the brain associated with various neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., amyloid-β plaques or microtubule-associated protein tau strands). However, the relatively high...
We are studying new detection concepts, methods, and system designs to advance time-of-flight (TOF) positron emission tomography (PET). In this talk we will describe three efforts in this direction. The first is a ‘radio-frequency-penetrable’ PET insert design that we are building for simultaneous brain TOF-PET/MRI of neurological disorders that employs novel design features to enable ~230...
Interest towards high sensitivity multiparametric imaging modalities has increased during the last years. In this context, high precision Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners have shown great potential. Two paths to further enhance PET sensitivity have been outlined: (i) including photon Time-of-Flight (TOF) information during the image reconstruction process; or (ii) increasing the...
We are conceiving a new imaging modality called Prompt Gamma Time Imaging (PGTI) to achieve the real time measurement of the proton range during particle therapy treatments. The goal of PGTI is to reconstruct an image of the vertex distribution of Prompt Gamma rays (PG) emitted from the patient, through the exclusive measurement of particle Time-Of-Flight (TOF). The start trigger is given by a...
J-PET is a multi-photon PET system prototype [1] enabling multi-photon and positronium imaging. The quality of these images relies strongly on the system's time resolution. In this presentation, we will explain the newly developed method of positronium imaging and present the first multi-photon [2] and in-vitro positronium images [3]. We will discuss the clinical motivation for improving the...
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nano- and micro-sized cell-derived entities, released from cells under physiological and pathological conditions [1]. EVs can be found in every biological fluid including blood, saliva, milk, or urine, serving as a liquid biopsy [2]. Their biological properties (cell-uptake, biocompatibility) [3], and chemical (composition, structure) or physical (size,...
The characterization of cancerous tissue alterations in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) requires the acquisition of demanding gradient pulse sequences that use a high slew rate. This allows for a high temporal resolution both in the sensitivity to the movement of water molecules diffusion in tissues and to the kinetics of blood flow through vessels and capillaries, the principles of diffusion...
