Sune Keller - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Sune Keller
IEEE Nuclear Science Symposuim & Medical Imaging Conference, 2010
Patient motion during PET scans introduces errors in the attenuation correction and image blurrin... more Patient motion during PET scans introduces errors in the attenuation correction and image blurring leading to false changes in regional radioactivity concentrations. However, the potential effect that motion has on simulation-based scatter correction is not fully appreciated. Specifically for tracers with high uptake close to the edge of head (e.g. scalp and nose) as observed with [ 11 C]Verapamil, mismatches between transmission and emission data can lead to significant quantification errors and image artefacts due to over scatter correction. These errors are linked with unusually high values in the scatter scaling factors (SSF) returned during the single scatter simulation process implemented in the HRRT image reconstruction.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2000
Head movements during brain imaging using high resolution positron emission tomography (PET) impa... more Head movements during brain imaging using high resolution positron emission tomography (PET) impair the image quality which, along with the improvement of the spatial resolution of PET scanners, in general, raises the importance of motion correction. Here, we present a new design for an automatic, movable, mechanical PET phantom to simulate patients' head movements while being scanned. This can be
NeuroImage, 2014
Aim: Combined PET/MR systems have now become available for clinical use. Given the lack of integr... more Aim: Combined PET/MR systems have now become available for clinical use. Given the lack of integrated standard transmission (TX) sources in these systems, attenuation and scatter correction (AC) must be performed using the available MR-images. Since bone tissue cannot easily be accounted for during MR-AC, PET quantification can be biased, in particular, in the vicinity of the skull. Here, we assess PET quantification in PET/MR imaging of patients using phantoms and patient data. Materials and methods: Nineteen patients referred to our clinic for a PET/CT exam as part of the diagnostic evaluation of suspected dementia were included in our study. The patients were injected with 200 MBq [ 18 F]FDG and imaged with PET/CT and PET/MR in random sequence within 1 h. Both, PET/CT and PET/MR were performed as single-bed acquisitions without contrast administration. PET/CT and PET/MR data were reconstructed following CT-based and MR-based AC, respectively. MR-AC was performed based on: (A) standard Dixon-Water-Fat segmentation (DWFS), (B) DWFS with co-registered and segmented CT bone values superimposed, and (C) with co-registered full CT-based attenuation image. All PET images were reconstructed using AW-OSEM, with neither resolution recovery nor time-of-flight option employed. PET/CT (D) or PET/MR (A-C) images were decay-corrected to the start time of the first examination. PET images following AC were evaluated visually and quantitatively using 10 homeomorphic regions of interest drawn on a transaxial T1w-MR image traversing the central basal ganglia. We report the relative difference (%) of the mean ROI values for (A)-(C) in reference to PET/CT (D). In a separate phantom experiment a 2 L plastic bottle was layered with approximately 12 mm of Gypsum plaster to mimic skull bone. The phantom was imaged on PET/CT only and standard MR-AC was performed by replacing hyperdense CT attenuation values corresponding to bone (plaster) with attenuation values of water. PET image reconstruction was performed with CT-AC (D) and CT-AC using the modified CT images corresponding to MR-AC using DWFS (A). Results: PET activity values in patients following MR-AC (A) showed a substantial radial dependency when compared to PET/CT. In all patients cortical PET activity was lower than the activity in the central region of the brain (10-15%). When adding bone attenuation values to standard MR-AC (B and C) the radial gradient of PET activity values was removed. Further evaluation of PET/MR activity following MR-AC (A) relative to MR-AC (C) using the full CT for attenuation correction showed an underestimation of 25% in the cortical regions and 5-10% in the central regions of the brain. Observations in patients were replicated by observations from the phantom study. Conclusion: Our phantom and patient data demonstrate a spatially varying bias of the PET activity in PET/MR images of the brain when bone tissue is not accounted for during attenuation correction. This has immediate implications for PET/MR imaging of the brain. Therefore, refinements to existing MR-AC methods or alternative strategies need to be found prior to adopting PET/MR imaging of the brain in clinical routine and research.
European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, 2013
Purpose In combined whole-body PET/MR, attenuation correction (AC) is performed indirectly using ... more Purpose In combined whole-body PET/MR, attenuation correction (AC) is performed indirectly using the available MR image information and subsequent segmentation. Implant-induced susceptibility artifacts and subsequent signal voids may challenge MR-based AC (MR-AC). We evaluated the accuracy of MR-AC in PET/MR in patients with metallic endoprostheses, and propose a clinically feasible correction method. Methods We selected patients with uni-or bilateral endoprostheses from 61 consecutive referrals for whole-body PET/MR imaging (mMR; Siemens Healthcare). Simultaneous wholebody PET/MR imaging was performed at 120 min after injection of about 300 MBq [ 18 F]FDG. MR-AC was performed using (1) original MR images and subsequent Dixon water-fat segmentation, (2) as method 1 with implant-induced signal voids filled with soft tissue, (3) as method 2 with superimposed coregistered endoprostheses from the CT scan, and (4) as method 1 with implant-induced signal voids filled with metal. Following MR-AC (methods 1-4) PET emission images were reconstructed on 344×344 matrices using attenuationweighted OSEM (three iterations, 21 subsets, 4 mm gaussian). Maximum body-weight normalized standardized uptake values (SUVmax) were obtained for both hips. Mean SUV (SUVmean) in homogeneous reference regions in the gluteal muscle and bladder following MR-AC (methods 1-4) are also reported. Results In total, four patients presented with endoprostheses, unilateral in two and bilateral in two. The fraction of voxels in MR images affected by the implant was at least twice that of the voxels representing the actual implants. MR-AC using methods 2 and 3 recovered the FDG distribution pattern compared to uncorrected PET images and method 1, while method 4 resulted in severe overestimation of FDG uptake (>460 % SUVmax). When compared to method 1, relative changes in SUVmean in the reference regions from method 2 and 3 were generally small albeit not correlated with the fraction of the attenuation image affected by implant-induced artifacts. Conclusions Endoprostheses cause PET/MR artifacts that exceed the volume occupied by the implants, and bias PET quantification. Artifacts and bias can be corrected by semiautomated inpainting with soft tissue with a single composition prior to MR-AC, thus restoring quantitative activity distribution.
EJNMMI Physics, 2015
We present a study performing motion correction (MC) of PET using MR navigators sampled between o... more We present a study performing motion correction (MC) of PET using MR navigators sampled between other protocolled MR sequences during simultaneous PET/MR brain scanning with the purpose of evaluating its clinical feasibility and the potential improvement of image quality. Twenty-nine human subjects had a 30-min [(11)C]-PiB PET scan with simultaneous MR including 3D navigators sampled at six time points, which were used to correct the PET image for rigid head motion. Five subjects with motion greater than 4 mm were reconstructed into six frames (one for each navigator) which were averaged to one image after MC. The average maximum motion magnitude observed was 3.9 ± 2.4 mm (1 to 11 mm). Visual evaluation by a nuclear medicine physician of the five subjects' motion corrected rated three of the five images blurred before motion correction, while no images were rated blurred after. The image quality was scored on a scale of 1-5, 5 being best. The score changed from an average of 3.4 before motion correction to 4.0 after. There was no correlation between maximum motion magnitude and rating. Quantitative SUVr scoring did not change markedly with motion correction. Sparsely sampled navigators can be used for characterization and correction of head motion. A slight, overall decrease in blurring and an increase in image quality with MC was found, but without impact on clinical interpretation. In future studies with noteworthy motion artifacts, our method is an important and simple-to-use tool to have available for motion correction.
![Research paper thumbnail of Quantification and accuracy of clinical [11C]-PiB PET/MRI: the effect of MR-based attenuation correction](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/42086183/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](EJNMMI Physics, 2014
The Dixon-Water-Fat segmentation (DWFS) method is a standard attenuation correction (AC) method i... more The Dixon-Water-Fat segmentation (DWFS) method is a standard attenuation correction (AC) method in PET/MRI on the Siemens mMR and has demonstrated a systematic quantitative bias in [18F]-FDG-PET/MRI studies of the brain compared to PET/CT. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of DWFS-AC in a hybrid PET/MR scanner on regional and global quantitation of [11C]-PiB cerebral amyloid imaging of the brain and in the clinical reading.
Medical Imaging 2014: Image Processing, 2014
ABSTRACT In combined PET/MR, attenuation correction (AC) is performed indirectly based on the ava... more ABSTRACT In combined PET/MR, attenuation correction (AC) is performed indirectly based on the available MR image information. Metal implant-induced susceptibility artifacts and subsequent signal voids challenge MR-based AC. Several papers acknowledge the problem in PET attenuation correction when dental artifacts are ignored, but none of them attempts to solve the problem. We propose a clinically feasible correction method which combines Active Shape Models (ASM) and k- Nearest-Neighbors (kNN) into a simple approach which finds and corrects the dental artifacts within the surface boundaries of the patient anatomy. ASM is used to locate a number of landmarks in the T1-weighted MR-image of a new patient. We calculate a vector of offsets from each voxel within a signal void to each of the landmarks. We then use kNN to classify each voxel as belonging to an artifact or an actual signal void using this offset vector, and fill the artifact voxels with a value representing soft tissue. We tested the method using fourteen patients without artifacts, and eighteen patients with dental artifacts of varying sizes within the anatomical surface of the head/neck region. Though the method wrongly filled a small volume in the bottom part of a maxillary sinus in two patients without any artifacts, due to their abnormal location, it succeeded in filling all dental artifact regions in all patients. In conclusion, we propose a method, which combines ASM and kNN into a simple approach which, as the results show, succeeds to find and correct the dental artifacts within the anatomical surface.
Purpose Integrated whole-body PET/MRI tomographs have become available. PET/MR imaging has the po... more Purpose Integrated whole-body PET/MRI tomographs have become available. PET/MR imaging has the potential to supplement, or even replace combined PET/CT imaging in selected clinical indications. However, this is true only if methodological pitfalls and image artifacts arising from novel MR-based attenuation correction (MR-AC) are fully understood. Results Here we present PET/MR image artifacts following routine MR-AC, as most frequently observed in clinical operations of an integrated whole-body PET/MRI system. Conclusion A clinical adoption of integrated PET/MRI should entail the joint image display and interpretation of MR data, MR-based attenuation maps and uncorrected plus attenuation-corrected PET images in order to recognize potential pitfalls from MR-AC and to ensure clinically accurate image interpretation. Keywords PET/MRI Á MR-based attenuation correction Á Image artifacts Á Pitfalls
Background: We present a quick and easy method to perform quantitatively accurate PET scans of ty... more Background: We present a quick and easy method to perform quantitatively accurate PET scans of typical water-filled PET plastic shell phantoms on the Siemens Biograph mMR PET/MR system. We perform regular cross-calibrations (Xcal) of our PET systems, including the PET/MR, using a Siemens mCT water phantom. Long-term stability: The mMR calibration stability was evaluated over a 3-year period where 54 cross-calibrations were acquired, showing that the mMR on average underestimated the concentration by 16 %, consistently due to the use of MR-based μ-maps. The mMR produced the narrowest calibration ratio range with the lowest standard deviation, implying it is the most stable of the six systems in the study over a 3-year period.
Background: We present a study performing motion correction (MC) of PET using MR navigators sampl... more Background: We present a study performing motion correction (MC) of PET using MR navigators sampled between other protocolled MR sequences during simultaneous PET/MR brain scanning with the purpose of evaluating its clinical feasibility and the potential improvement of image quality.
Many authors have reported the importance of motion correction (MC) for PET. Patient motion durin... more Many authors have reported the importance of motion correction (MC) for PET. Patient motion during scanning disturbs kinetic analysis and degrades resolution. In addition, using misaligned transmission for attenuation and scatter correction may produce regional quantification bias in the reconstructed emission images. The purpose of this work was the development of quality control (QC) methods for MC procedures based on external motion tracking (EMT) for human scanning using an optical motion tracking system. Methods: Two scans with minor motion and 5 with major motion (as reported by the optical motion tracking system) were selected from 18 F-FDG scans acquired on a PET scanner. The motion was measured as the maximum displacement of the markers attached to the subject's head and was considered to be major if larger than 4 mm and minor if less than 2 mm. After allowing a 40-to 60-min uptake time after tracer injection, we acquired a 6-min transmission scan, followed by a 40-min emission list-mode scan. Each emission list-mode dataset was divided into 8 frames of 5 min. The reconstructed time-framed images were aligned to a selected reference frame using either EMT or the AIR (automated image registration) software. The following 3 QC methods were used to evaluate the EMT and AIR MC: a method using the ratio between 2 regions of interest with gray matter voxels (GM) and white matter voxels (WM), called GM/WM; mutual information; and cross correlation. Results: The results of the 3 QC methods were in agreement with one another and with a visual subjective inspection of the image data. Before MC, the QC method measures varied significantly in scans with major motion and displayed limited variations on scans with minor motion. The variation was significantly reduced and measures improved after MC with AIR, whereas EMT MC performed less well. Conclusion: The 3 presented QC methods produced similar results and are useful for evaluating tracer-independent external-tracking motion-correction methods for human brain scans.
—In the standard software for the Siemens high-resolution research tomograph (HRRT) positron emis... more —In the standard software for the Siemens high-resolution research tomograph (HRRT) positron emission tomography (PET) scanner the most commonly used segmentation in the-map reconstruction for human brain scans is maximum a pos-teriori for transmission (MAP-TR). Bias in the lower cerebellum and pons in HRRT brain images have been reported. The two main sources of the problem with MAP-TR are poor bone/soft tissue segmentation below the brain and overestimation of bone mass in the skull. Method: We developed the new transmission processing with total variation (TXTV) method that introduces scatter correction in the-map reconstruction and total variation filtering to the transmission processing. Results: Comparing MAP-TR and the new TXTV with gold standard CT-based atten-uation correction, we found that TXTV has less bias as compared to MAP-TR. We also compared images acquired at the HRRT scanner using TXTV to the GE Advance scanner images and found high quantitative correspondence. TXTV has been used to reconstruct more than 4000 HRRT scans at seven different sites with no reports of biases. Conclusion: TXTV-based reconstruction is recommended for human brain scans on the HRRT.
EJNMMI Physics, 2014
Background: The current MR-based attenuation correction (AC) used in combined PET/MR systems comp... more Background: The current MR-based attenuation correction (AC) used in combined PET/MR systems computes a Dixon attenuation map (MR-AC Dixon ) based on fat and water images derived from in-and opposed-phase MRI. We observed an occasional fat/water inversion in MR-AC Dixon . The aim of our study was to estimate the prevalence of this phenomenon in a large patient cohort and assess the possible bias on PET data.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005
We propose a new way of deinterlacing using a total variation scheme. Starting by the Bayesian in... more We propose a new way of deinterlacing using a total variation scheme. Starting by the Bayesian inference formulation of total variation we do MAP by rewriting the problem into PDEs that can be solved by simple numerical schemes. Normally deinterlacing schemes are developed ad hoc with online hardware implementation directly at eye, sometimes with some frequency analysis as only theoretical base. Our belief is that mathematically well based image models are needed to do optimal deinterlacing and by our work presented here, we hope to prove it. Comparing the output of our scheme with those of ten known deinterlacing schemes shows very promising results.
2005 IEEE 7th Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing, 2005
In this paper we introduce an algorithm -commonly known as a film mode detector -for separating p... more In this paper we introduce an algorithm -commonly known as a film mode detector -for separating progressive source video from interlaced source video. Due to interlacing artifacts in the presence of motion, a difference in isophote curvature can be measured and a threshold for effective classification can be set. This can be used in a video converter to ensure high quality output. We study two approaches.
IEEE Nuclear Science Symposuim & Medical Imaging Conference, 2010
Patient motion during PET scans introduces errors in the attenuation correction and image blurrin... more Patient motion during PET scans introduces errors in the attenuation correction and image blurring leading to false changes in regional radioactivity concentrations. However, the potential effect that motion has on simulation-based scatter correction is not fully appreciated. Specifically for tracers with high uptake close to the edge of head (e.g. scalp and nose) as observed with [ 11 C]Verapamil, mismatches between transmission and emission data can lead to significant quantification errors and image artefacts due to over scatter correction. These errors are linked with unusually high values in the scatter scaling factors (SSF) returned during the single scatter simulation process implemented in the HRRT image reconstruction.
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2000
Head movements during brain imaging using high resolution positron emission tomography (PET) impa... more Head movements during brain imaging using high resolution positron emission tomography (PET) impair the image quality which, along with the improvement of the spatial resolution of PET scanners, in general, raises the importance of motion correction. Here, we present a new design for an automatic, movable, mechanical PET phantom to simulate patients' head movements while being scanned. This can be
NeuroImage, 2014
Aim: Combined PET/MR systems have now become available for clinical use. Given the lack of integr... more Aim: Combined PET/MR systems have now become available for clinical use. Given the lack of integrated standard transmission (TX) sources in these systems, attenuation and scatter correction (AC) must be performed using the available MR-images. Since bone tissue cannot easily be accounted for during MR-AC, PET quantification can be biased, in particular, in the vicinity of the skull. Here, we assess PET quantification in PET/MR imaging of patients using phantoms and patient data. Materials and methods: Nineteen patients referred to our clinic for a PET/CT exam as part of the diagnostic evaluation of suspected dementia were included in our study. The patients were injected with 200 MBq [ 18 F]FDG and imaged with PET/CT and PET/MR in random sequence within 1 h. Both, PET/CT and PET/MR were performed as single-bed acquisitions without contrast administration. PET/CT and PET/MR data were reconstructed following CT-based and MR-based AC, respectively. MR-AC was performed based on: (A) standard Dixon-Water-Fat segmentation (DWFS), (B) DWFS with co-registered and segmented CT bone values superimposed, and (C) with co-registered full CT-based attenuation image. All PET images were reconstructed using AW-OSEM, with neither resolution recovery nor time-of-flight option employed. PET/CT (D) or PET/MR (A-C) images were decay-corrected to the start time of the first examination. PET images following AC were evaluated visually and quantitatively using 10 homeomorphic regions of interest drawn on a transaxial T1w-MR image traversing the central basal ganglia. We report the relative difference (%) of the mean ROI values for (A)-(C) in reference to PET/CT (D). In a separate phantom experiment a 2 L plastic bottle was layered with approximately 12 mm of Gypsum plaster to mimic skull bone. The phantom was imaged on PET/CT only and standard MR-AC was performed by replacing hyperdense CT attenuation values corresponding to bone (plaster) with attenuation values of water. PET image reconstruction was performed with CT-AC (D) and CT-AC using the modified CT images corresponding to MR-AC using DWFS (A). Results: PET activity values in patients following MR-AC (A) showed a substantial radial dependency when compared to PET/CT. In all patients cortical PET activity was lower than the activity in the central region of the brain (10-15%). When adding bone attenuation values to standard MR-AC (B and C) the radial gradient of PET activity values was removed. Further evaluation of PET/MR activity following MR-AC (A) relative to MR-AC (C) using the full CT for attenuation correction showed an underestimation of 25% in the cortical regions and 5-10% in the central regions of the brain. Observations in patients were replicated by observations from the phantom study. Conclusion: Our phantom and patient data demonstrate a spatially varying bias of the PET activity in PET/MR images of the brain when bone tissue is not accounted for during attenuation correction. This has immediate implications for PET/MR imaging of the brain. Therefore, refinements to existing MR-AC methods or alternative strategies need to be found prior to adopting PET/MR imaging of the brain in clinical routine and research.
European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, 2013
Purpose In combined whole-body PET/MR, attenuation correction (AC) is performed indirectly using ... more Purpose In combined whole-body PET/MR, attenuation correction (AC) is performed indirectly using the available MR image information and subsequent segmentation. Implant-induced susceptibility artifacts and subsequent signal voids may challenge MR-based AC (MR-AC). We evaluated the accuracy of MR-AC in PET/MR in patients with metallic endoprostheses, and propose a clinically feasible correction method. Methods We selected patients with uni-or bilateral endoprostheses from 61 consecutive referrals for whole-body PET/MR imaging (mMR; Siemens Healthcare). Simultaneous wholebody PET/MR imaging was performed at 120 min after injection of about 300 MBq [ 18 F]FDG. MR-AC was performed using (1) original MR images and subsequent Dixon water-fat segmentation, (2) as method 1 with implant-induced signal voids filled with soft tissue, (3) as method 2 with superimposed coregistered endoprostheses from the CT scan, and (4) as method 1 with implant-induced signal voids filled with metal. Following MR-AC (methods 1-4) PET emission images were reconstructed on 344×344 matrices using attenuationweighted OSEM (three iterations, 21 subsets, 4 mm gaussian). Maximum body-weight normalized standardized uptake values (SUVmax) were obtained for both hips. Mean SUV (SUVmean) in homogeneous reference regions in the gluteal muscle and bladder following MR-AC (methods 1-4) are also reported. Results In total, four patients presented with endoprostheses, unilateral in two and bilateral in two. The fraction of voxels in MR images affected by the implant was at least twice that of the voxels representing the actual implants. MR-AC using methods 2 and 3 recovered the FDG distribution pattern compared to uncorrected PET images and method 1, while method 4 resulted in severe overestimation of FDG uptake (>460 % SUVmax). When compared to method 1, relative changes in SUVmean in the reference regions from method 2 and 3 were generally small albeit not correlated with the fraction of the attenuation image affected by implant-induced artifacts. Conclusions Endoprostheses cause PET/MR artifacts that exceed the volume occupied by the implants, and bias PET quantification. Artifacts and bias can be corrected by semiautomated inpainting with soft tissue with a single composition prior to MR-AC, thus restoring quantitative activity distribution.
EJNMMI Physics, 2015
We present a study performing motion correction (MC) of PET using MR navigators sampled between o... more We present a study performing motion correction (MC) of PET using MR navigators sampled between other protocolled MR sequences during simultaneous PET/MR brain scanning with the purpose of evaluating its clinical feasibility and the potential improvement of image quality. Twenty-nine human subjects had a 30-min [(11)C]-PiB PET scan with simultaneous MR including 3D navigators sampled at six time points, which were used to correct the PET image for rigid head motion. Five subjects with motion greater than 4 mm were reconstructed into six frames (one for each navigator) which were averaged to one image after MC. The average maximum motion magnitude observed was 3.9 ± 2.4 mm (1 to 11 mm). Visual evaluation by a nuclear medicine physician of the five subjects' motion corrected rated three of the five images blurred before motion correction, while no images were rated blurred after. The image quality was scored on a scale of 1-5, 5 being best. The score changed from an average of 3.4 before motion correction to 4.0 after. There was no correlation between maximum motion magnitude and rating. Quantitative SUVr scoring did not change markedly with motion correction. Sparsely sampled navigators can be used for characterization and correction of head motion. A slight, overall decrease in blurring and an increase in image quality with MC was found, but without impact on clinical interpretation. In future studies with noteworthy motion artifacts, our method is an important and simple-to-use tool to have available for motion correction.
EJNMMI Physics, 2014
The Dixon-Water-Fat segmentation (DWFS) method is a standard attenuation correction (AC) method i... more The Dixon-Water-Fat segmentation (DWFS) method is a standard attenuation correction (AC) method in PET/MRI on the Siemens mMR and has demonstrated a systematic quantitative bias in [18F]-FDG-PET/MRI studies of the brain compared to PET/CT. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of DWFS-AC in a hybrid PET/MR scanner on regional and global quantitation of [11C]-PiB cerebral amyloid imaging of the brain and in the clinical reading.
Medical Imaging 2014: Image Processing, 2014
ABSTRACT In combined PET/MR, attenuation correction (AC) is performed indirectly based on the ava... more ABSTRACT In combined PET/MR, attenuation correction (AC) is performed indirectly based on the available MR image information. Metal implant-induced susceptibility artifacts and subsequent signal voids challenge MR-based AC. Several papers acknowledge the problem in PET attenuation correction when dental artifacts are ignored, but none of them attempts to solve the problem. We propose a clinically feasible correction method which combines Active Shape Models (ASM) and k- Nearest-Neighbors (kNN) into a simple approach which finds and corrects the dental artifacts within the surface boundaries of the patient anatomy. ASM is used to locate a number of landmarks in the T1-weighted MR-image of a new patient. We calculate a vector of offsets from each voxel within a signal void to each of the landmarks. We then use kNN to classify each voxel as belonging to an artifact or an actual signal void using this offset vector, and fill the artifact voxels with a value representing soft tissue. We tested the method using fourteen patients without artifacts, and eighteen patients with dental artifacts of varying sizes within the anatomical surface of the head/neck region. Though the method wrongly filled a small volume in the bottom part of a maxillary sinus in two patients without any artifacts, due to their abnormal location, it succeeded in filling all dental artifact regions in all patients. In conclusion, we propose a method, which combines ASM and kNN into a simple approach which, as the results show, succeeds to find and correct the dental artifacts within the anatomical surface.
Purpose Integrated whole-body PET/MRI tomographs have become available. PET/MR imaging has the po... more Purpose Integrated whole-body PET/MRI tomographs have become available. PET/MR imaging has the potential to supplement, or even replace combined PET/CT imaging in selected clinical indications. However, this is true only if methodological pitfalls and image artifacts arising from novel MR-based attenuation correction (MR-AC) are fully understood. Results Here we present PET/MR image artifacts following routine MR-AC, as most frequently observed in clinical operations of an integrated whole-body PET/MRI system. Conclusion A clinical adoption of integrated PET/MRI should entail the joint image display and interpretation of MR data, MR-based attenuation maps and uncorrected plus attenuation-corrected PET images in order to recognize potential pitfalls from MR-AC and to ensure clinically accurate image interpretation. Keywords PET/MRI Á MR-based attenuation correction Á Image artifacts Á Pitfalls
Background: We present a quick and easy method to perform quantitatively accurate PET scans of ty... more Background: We present a quick and easy method to perform quantitatively accurate PET scans of typical water-filled PET plastic shell phantoms on the Siemens Biograph mMR PET/MR system. We perform regular cross-calibrations (Xcal) of our PET systems, including the PET/MR, using a Siemens mCT water phantom. Long-term stability: The mMR calibration stability was evaluated over a 3-year period where 54 cross-calibrations were acquired, showing that the mMR on average underestimated the concentration by 16 %, consistently due to the use of MR-based μ-maps. The mMR produced the narrowest calibration ratio range with the lowest standard deviation, implying it is the most stable of the six systems in the study over a 3-year period.
Background: We present a study performing motion correction (MC) of PET using MR navigators sampl... more Background: We present a study performing motion correction (MC) of PET using MR navigators sampled between other protocolled MR sequences during simultaneous PET/MR brain scanning with the purpose of evaluating its clinical feasibility and the potential improvement of image quality.
Many authors have reported the importance of motion correction (MC) for PET. Patient motion durin... more Many authors have reported the importance of motion correction (MC) for PET. Patient motion during scanning disturbs kinetic analysis and degrades resolution. In addition, using misaligned transmission for attenuation and scatter correction may produce regional quantification bias in the reconstructed emission images. The purpose of this work was the development of quality control (QC) methods for MC procedures based on external motion tracking (EMT) for human scanning using an optical motion tracking system. Methods: Two scans with minor motion and 5 with major motion (as reported by the optical motion tracking system) were selected from 18 F-FDG scans acquired on a PET scanner. The motion was measured as the maximum displacement of the markers attached to the subject's head and was considered to be major if larger than 4 mm and minor if less than 2 mm. After allowing a 40-to 60-min uptake time after tracer injection, we acquired a 6-min transmission scan, followed by a 40-min emission list-mode scan. Each emission list-mode dataset was divided into 8 frames of 5 min. The reconstructed time-framed images were aligned to a selected reference frame using either EMT or the AIR (automated image registration) software. The following 3 QC methods were used to evaluate the EMT and AIR MC: a method using the ratio between 2 regions of interest with gray matter voxels (GM) and white matter voxels (WM), called GM/WM; mutual information; and cross correlation. Results: The results of the 3 QC methods were in agreement with one another and with a visual subjective inspection of the image data. Before MC, the QC method measures varied significantly in scans with major motion and displayed limited variations on scans with minor motion. The variation was significantly reduced and measures improved after MC with AIR, whereas EMT MC performed less well. Conclusion: The 3 presented QC methods produced similar results and are useful for evaluating tracer-independent external-tracking motion-correction methods for human brain scans.
—In the standard software for the Siemens high-resolution research tomograph (HRRT) positron emis... more —In the standard software for the Siemens high-resolution research tomograph (HRRT) positron emission tomography (PET) scanner the most commonly used segmentation in the-map reconstruction for human brain scans is maximum a pos-teriori for transmission (MAP-TR). Bias in the lower cerebellum and pons in HRRT brain images have been reported. The two main sources of the problem with MAP-TR are poor bone/soft tissue segmentation below the brain and overestimation of bone mass in the skull. Method: We developed the new transmission processing with total variation (TXTV) method that introduces scatter correction in the-map reconstruction and total variation filtering to the transmission processing. Results: Comparing MAP-TR and the new TXTV with gold standard CT-based atten-uation correction, we found that TXTV has less bias as compared to MAP-TR. We also compared images acquired at the HRRT scanner using TXTV to the GE Advance scanner images and found high quantitative correspondence. TXTV has been used to reconstruct more than 4000 HRRT scans at seven different sites with no reports of biases. Conclusion: TXTV-based reconstruction is recommended for human brain scans on the HRRT.
EJNMMI Physics, 2014
Background: The current MR-based attenuation correction (AC) used in combined PET/MR systems comp... more Background: The current MR-based attenuation correction (AC) used in combined PET/MR systems computes a Dixon attenuation map (MR-AC Dixon ) based on fat and water images derived from in-and opposed-phase MRI. We observed an occasional fat/water inversion in MR-AC Dixon . The aim of our study was to estimate the prevalence of this phenomenon in a large patient cohort and assess the possible bias on PET data.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005
We propose a new way of deinterlacing using a total variation scheme. Starting by the Bayesian in... more We propose a new way of deinterlacing using a total variation scheme. Starting by the Bayesian inference formulation of total variation we do MAP by rewriting the problem into PDEs that can be solved by simple numerical schemes. Normally deinterlacing schemes are developed ad hoc with online hardware implementation directly at eye, sometimes with some frequency analysis as only theoretical base. Our belief is that mathematically well based image models are needed to do optimal deinterlacing and by our work presented here, we hope to prove it. Comparing the output of our scheme with those of ten known deinterlacing schemes shows very promising results.
2005 IEEE 7th Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing, 2005
In this paper we introduce an algorithm -commonly known as a film mode detector -for separating p... more In this paper we introduce an algorithm -commonly known as a film mode detector -for separating progressive source video from interlaced source video. Due to interlacing artifacts in the presence of motion, a difference in isophote curvature can be measured and a threshold for effective classification can be set. This can be used in a video converter to ensure high quality output. We study two approaches.