Assessment of different quantification metrics of [18F]-NaF PET/CT images of patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm

Mercy I. Akerele, Nouf A. Mushari, Rachael O. Forsythe, Maaz Syed, Nicolas A. Karakatsanis, David E. Newby, Marc R. Dweck, Charalampos Tsoumpas

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: We aim to assess the spill-in effect and the benefit in quantitative accuracy for [18F]-NaF PET/CT imaging of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) using the background correction (BC) technique. Methods: Seventy-two datasets of patients diagnosed with AAA were reconstructed with ordered subset expectation maximization algorithm incorporating point spread function (PSF). Spill-in effect was investigated for the entire aneurysm (AAA), and part of the aneurysm excluding the region close to the bone (AAAexc). Quantifications of PSF and PSF+BC images using different thresholds (% of max. SUV in target regions-of-interest) to derive target-to-background (TBR) values (TBRmax, TBR90, TBR70 and TBR50) were compared at 3 and 10 iterations. Results: TBR differences were observed between AAA and AAAexc due to spill-in effect from the bone into the aneurysm. TBRmax showed the highest sensitivity to the spill-in effect while TBR50 showed the least. The spill-in effect was reduced at 10 iterations compared to 3 iterations, but at the expense of reduced contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). TBR50 yielded the best trade-off between increased CNR and reduced spill-in effect. PSF+BC method reduced TBR sensitivity to spill-in effect, especially at 3 iterations, compared to PSF (P-value ≤ 0.05). Conclusion: TBR50 is robust metric for reduced spill-in and increased CNR.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)251-261
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Nuclear Cardiology
Volume29
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2022

Keywords

  • Abdominal aortic aneurysm
  • background correction
  • spill-in effect
  • target-to-background ratio

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