June 24, 2023 — A newly developed know-how known as “augmented whole-body scanning via magnifying PET” (AWSM-PET) has been proven to reinforce the picture decision and system sensitivity of scientific whole-body PET/CT imaging. The cost-effective know-how, offered on the 2023 Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Annual Meeting, makes use of excessive decision add-on detectors that concurrently scan a affected person throughout a typical whole-body PET scan.

“Whole-body PET/CT imaging is broadly used for cancer staging and restaging and to evaluate patients’ response to treatment interventions; however, its diagnostic accuracy is compromised when the lesions are very small or exhibit weak signals,” mentioned Yuan-Chuan Tai, PhD, affiliate professor of radiology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “Our novel AWSM-PET prototype helps to tackle two of the key limitations in whole-body PET imaging: image resolution and overall system sensitivity.”

The AWSM-PET know-how makes use of two high-resolution PET detectors which can be positioned exterior of a scanner’s axial imaging discipline of view as an “outsert” machine. The machine concurrently acquires high-resolution PET information as a affected person undergoes whole-body PET, and customised firmware and software program encode and collectively reconstruct the info. In the examine, a cylindrical phantom with lesions starting from 1.96 mm to 7.6 mm in diameter was imaged to check the AWSM-PET know-how.  

Results revealed a transparent enchancment in picture decision with the AWSM-PET machine. The firmware and software program have been additionally validated to substantiate the performance of the prototype machine.

“The additional high-resolution data from the AWSM-PET device can enhance the overall image resolution and reduce statistical noise,” famous Tai. “The potential improvement in diagnostic accuracy of clinical whole-body PET/CT may benefit cancer patients.”

A pilot human imaging trial is scheduled to start out in the summertime of 2023 on the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. The trial will evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the AWSM-PET know-how in opposition to the usual FDG whole-body PET/CT. 

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