Performance evaluation of the PennPET explorer with expanded axial coverage.

This work evaluated the updated PennPET Explorer total-body (TB) PET scanner, which was extended to 6 rings with updated readout firmware to achieve a 142 cm axial field of view (AFOV) without 7.6 cm inter-ring axial gaps.National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) NU 2-2018 measurements were performed with modifications including longer phantoms for sensitivity and count-rate measurements and additional positions for spatial resolution and image quality.

Total-body PET: a new paradigm for molecular imaging.

Total body (TB) positron emission tomography (PET) instruments have dramatically changed the paradigm of PET clinical and research studies due to their very high sensitivity and capability to image dynamic radiopharmaceutical distributions in the major organs of the body simultaneously. In this manuscript, we review the design of these systems and discuss general challenges and trade-offs to maximize the performance gains of current TB-PET systems. We then describe new concepts and technology that may impact future TB-PET systems.

Preliminary Evaluation of Ga-P16-093, a PET Radiotracer Targeting Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen in Prostate Cancer.

Purpose: Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is a promising molecular target for imaging of prostate adenocarcinoma. Ga-P16-093, a small molecule PSMA ligand, previously showed equivalent diagnostic performance compared to Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT in a pilot study of prostate cancer patients with biochemical recurrence (BCR). We performed a pilot study for further characterization of Ga-P16-093 including comparison to conventional imaging.

Abbreviated scan protocols to capture F-FDG kinetics for long axial FOV PET scanners.

Purpose: Kinetic parameters from dynamic F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) imaging offer complementary insights to the study of disease compared to static clinical imaging. However, dynamic imaging protocols are cumbersome due to the long acquisition time. Long axial field-of-view (LAFOV) PET scanners (> 70 cm) have two advantages for dynamic imaging over clinical PET scanners with a standard axial field-of-view (SAFOV; 16-30 cm).

Performance Characteristics of Long Axial Field-of-View PET Scanners with Axial Gaps.

The introduction of long (>60 cm) axial field-of-view (LAFOV) PET systems has shown their potential for clinical and research applications. LAFOV scanners are expensive, so there is interest in designing systems with longer axial coverage while mitigating cost by introducing detector gaps. We used measurements on the PennPET Explorer (64-cm AFOV prototype) and simulations of scanners up to 143-cm long to assess scanner performance with axial gaps introduced by varying the number of detector rows in each ring.