Dear Molecular Imaging Insider,
This edition of the Insider offers details on a study that explored the issue of attenuation correction in PET/MRI.
Researchers from Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen are advising PET/MRI users to account for bone attenuation in order to eliminate bias in tracer uptake of bony and soft-tissue lesions when employing standard MR attenuation correction. The corrections in accuracy and reliability are necessary to make PET/MRI a "routine imaging modality" for the detection of lesions and in follow-up examinations of patients with lesions anywhere in the body.
From Belgium comes research that FDG-PET scans are more useful than functional MRI in identifying which severely brain damaged individuals in vegetative states have the potential to recover consciousness. The study is the first time that researchers have tested the diagnostic accuracy of functional brain imaging techniques in clinical practice, and suggests that FDG-PET can reveal cognitive processes that are not visible through traditional bedside tests.
Also in the Molecular Imaging Digital Community, the U.K. Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) has published updated recommendations for cross-sectional imaging in cancer management. They can be downloaded free of charge from the RCR's website. The new second edition takes over from the first edition, published in 2006, and brings together PET, MR, and CT in the same document, reflecting the current clinical practice of these complementary techniques.
In the realm of oncology come two studies. Turkish researchers concluded that CT perfusion can be useful in evaluating esophageal cancers with small tumor diameters that are not amenable to assessment with PET/CT.
The second study reinforces FDG-PET/CT's ability to identify possible primary tumors in patients with carcinoma with unknown primary tumor syndrome at a rate comparable to that found in autopsy studies. In addition to spotting a possible primary tumor in 59% of cases, FDG-PET/CT visualized 52% additional tumor manifestations compared with conventional diagnostics.
