Optimization of yttrium-90 PET for simultaneous PET/MR imaging: A phantom study

Area of Science:

• Nuclear medicine
• Medical imaging
• Radiopharmaceutical therapy

Background:

• Yttrium-90 (Y-90) positron emission tomography (PET) is crucial for liver radioembolization dosimetry and assessing extrahepatic deposition.
• Combined PET/MR systems offer potential for improved Y-90 PET imaging through MR-based data correction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify the benefits of MR-based data correction techniques on a simultaneous PET/MR system for Y-90 imaging.
• To investigate the feasibility of motion and partial volume corrections for Y-90 PET in a controlled phantom setting.

Main Methods:

• Utilized an ACR phantom with Y-90 solution (8 GBq, 10:1 contrast).
• Evaluated MR-based motion correction using MR navigators and a simulated respiratory motion stage.
• Assessed MR-based partial volume correction via a wavelet decomposition approach.

Main Results:

• Motion caused a ~40% loss in contrast recovery for an 8 mm cylinder, which was corrected by MR-based motion correction.
• Partial volume correction improved contrast recovery by 13% for the 8 mm cylinder.

Conclusions:

• MR-based data correction techniques demonstrably improve Y-90 PET imaging quality on simultaneous PET/MR systems.
• Further clinical validation is necessary to assess the full impact of these correction methods in patient populations.