Discussion of PET workshop reports, including recommendations of PET Data Analysis Working Group

On May 1-2, 1989, a PET Data Analysis Working Group convened to consider positron emission tomography (PET) methodology and data analysis. The papers presented and the recommendations of the Group are reviewed. The Group recommended that a standard phantom of the human brain be used by different institutions to examine machine and data reconstruction PET variables. Interinstitutional comparisons could be aided by using a standard three-dimensional coordinate system. Deformations within individual diseased or atypical brains would require nonlinear as well as linear transformations to the standard space, using magnetic resonance images in register with the PET images. Methods for intersubject averaging of pixel-by-pixel or region-of-interest data, as well as appropriate statistical methods, need to be developed. PET data may first be exploratory and hypothesis-generating (with less stringent statistical theory), then later used to test hypotheses (with more stringent statistical criteria). Common databases, obtained by computer simulation models with known inherent structure, or directly by PET measurements on different groups, could be used to compare analytical and statistical methods among institutions.