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Chapter 1 - PET and PET/CT physics, instrumentation, and artifacts

from Part I - General concepts of PET and PET/CT imaging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2012

By
Stephen C. Moore  and
Mi-Ae Park
Edited by
Victor H. Gerbaudo
Victor H. Gerbaudo
Affiliation:
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
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Summary

This chapter provides background material essential for understanding the scientific and technical underpinnings of the image-formation process in positron emission tomography (PET). X-ray computed tomography (CT) will also be briefly discussed, though in much less detail. Instead, we will emphasize, later in this chapter, the ways in which the CT acquisition and resulting images influence reconstructed PET images. Because the terminology used to describe the most important nuclear physics and PET instrumentation concepts may be unfamiliar to some readers, we have highlighted certain key words and expressions in bold font when these terms are first introduced. For more advanced treatments of selected topics related to PET instrumentation and imaging, readers are referred to physics texts, such as those by Cherry et al. (1) and Wernick and Aarsvold (2).

Radioactive decay: positron emission, annihilation, and detection

In this section, we discuss the basic nuclear physics concepts on which PET imaging is based. We begin by presenting some information and terminology related to the decay of radioactive atoms, in general, as well as more detailed and specific descriptions of positron decay. Along the way, we will discuss several key characteristics of radioactive nuclei that emit positrons; these will later be shown to influence the quality of PET images.

Type
Chapter
Information
A Case-Based Approach to PET/CT in Oncology , pp. 1 - 18
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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References

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Wernick, MNAarsvold, JNEmission Tomography: The Fundamentals of PET and SPECTSan Diego, CAElsevier Academic Press 2004Google Scholar
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Watson, CCNewport, DCasey, MEA single-scatter simulation technique for scatter correction in 3D PETGrangeat, PAmans, JLFully Three-Dimensional Image Reconstruction in Radiology and Nuclear MedicineDordrechtKluwer Academic 1996 255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Kinahan, PETownsend, DWBeyer, TSashin, DAttenuation correction for a combined 3D PET/CT scannerMed Phys 1998 25 2046CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burger, CGoerres, GSchoenes, SPET attenuation coefficients from CT images: experimental evaluation of the transformation of CT into PET 500-keV attenuation coefficientsEur J Nucl Med 2002 29 922CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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