ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nucl. Med.
Sec. PET and SPECT
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnume.2025.1646662
This article is part of the Research TopicInflammation and Infection Imaging with PET and SPECTView all 4 articles
Quantification of FDG in the Spinal Cord Using PET/MRI
Provisionally accepted
- 1The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
- 2Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield, United Kingdom
- 3Joondalup Health Campus, Joondalup, Australia
- 4University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
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Background: In this study we investigate the impact of MR derived attenuation maps and limited detector resolution on the quantification of PET activity uptake in the spinal cord in PET/MRI. This is performed by simulating [ 18 F]FDG PET data in the neck and thorax, then modifying the attenuation map to remove bone features. We then compare OSEM reconstructed images to those with full attenuation correction. This is simulated at two detector resolutions of 2.1mm and 4.4mm. Acquisitions from a clinical study are then used to assess the ability of point spread function (PSF) modelling and time of flight (TOF) corrections as implemented on the SIGNA PET/MRI (GE HealthCare) to correct for these quantification errors. Mean uptake in regions of interest (ROIs) at each vertebral position along the spinal cord was measured for comparison.Results: Simulation results showed a decreasing pattern of uptake from cervical to thoracic spinal cord. When bone is not included in attenuation correction there is a decrease in mean uptake of 3%-10.4%. This difference in measured uptake is 6.4%-23.9% in images simulated at a detector resolution representative of a clinical PET/MR scanner. At 4.4mm detector resolution, a 32.2% decrease in uptake was measured compared to the 2.1mm simulation. In patient data, introducing vertebral bone to the attenuation correction pseudo-CT led to a 1.8%-18.3% difference in SUVmean in the spinal cord. Applying PSF modelling didn't lead to any statistically significant changes. TOF correction reduces the difference in SUVmean between data attenuation corrected with and without vertebral bone to 4.3%-7%. TOF Q.Clear images with beta = 100 showed the smallest difference between attenuation correction approaches at 0.6%-5.2%. Conclusion: Ignoring bone during image reconstruction in PET /MRI reduces activity measured during quantification of the spinal cord, however partial volume effect has a greater impact on reducing measured uptake in lower resolution data. Time of Flight correction goes some way to resolving these quantification errors, but further research is needed into partial volume correction.
Keywords: PET/MRI, positron emission tomography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Spinal Cord, Neurology, Neuro-imaging, quantification
Received: 13 Jun 2025; Accepted: 05 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lennie, Sourbron, Hoggard, Jenkins and Tsoumpas. 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: Charalampos Tsoumpas, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
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