BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Nucl. Med.
Sec. PET and SPECT
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnume.2025.1646628
This article is part of the Research TopicTotal Body Positron Emission Tomography: Science and Clinical ApplicationsView all 3 articles
EARL Compliance on the Biograph Vision Quadra PET-CT: Phantom Study for Static and Continuous Bed Motion Acquisitions
Provisionally accepted
Beverley Fiona Holman1,2*
Tamar Willson1
Bruno Ferreira1Neil Davis1Hemangini Natarajan3Jannat Khan3Thomas Wagner1,4Daniel McCool1- 1Nuclear Medicine, Royal Free Hospital, London, United Kingdom
- 2Division of Medicine, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 3Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom
- 4Centre for Medical Imaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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Purpose: Long axial field-of-view (LAFOV) PET systems like the Siemens Biograph Vision Quadra offer unprecedented sensitivity and imaging capabilities, but compliance with EARL standards across all acquisition modes remains unexplored. This study aimed to identify reconstruction parameters meeting EARL 1 and 2 compliance for static and continuous bed motion (CBM) acquisitions in High Sensitivity (HS) and Ultra-High Sensitivity (UHS) modes on the Quadra. The research focused on optimising image quality while maintaining compliance with quantitative standards.Methods: The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) body phantom was filled with 18F-FDG in a 10:1 sphere-to-background activity ratio and scanned at five positions across the field of view (FOV) using static and CBM acquisitions in HS and UHS modes. Reconstructions used standard clinical parameters, varied with Gaussian filters (1-7 mm) and matrix sizes (440, 220, 128). EARL compliance was assessed with the EARL tool to evaluate SUV recovery coefficients (RCSUVmean, RCSUVmax, RCSUVpeak). Patient images were reconstructed using standard and EARL-compliant parameters for comparison.Results: Reconstruction parameters achieving EARL compliance were identified for all acquisition modes, with no differences between static and CBM reconstructions. Achieving EARL compliance required significant image quality reductions, especially for EARL 1, with greater degradation in UHS mode. Patient images reconstructed with EARL-compliant parameters appeared smoother and had reduced contrast compared to clinical reconstructions. Conclusion: While EARL compliance ensures quantitative standardisation, it significantly reduces image quality, especially on advanced LAFOV PET systems. An updated "EARL 3" standard is needed to reflect the capabilities of modern systems.
Keywords: PET-CT, LAFOV, Quadra, Earl, Harmonisation, image quality
Received: 13 Jun 2025; Accepted: 03 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Holman, Willson, Ferreira, Davis, Natarajan, Khan, Wagner and McCool. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Beverley Fiona Holman, Nuclear Medicine, Royal Free Hospital, London, United Kingdom
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.