JQC-PET, AN ImageJ macro for the standardization of PET/CT quality control

Abstract

Introduction Several publications provide guidelines for the implementation of quality assurance and control programs concerning PET/CT systems. Sometimes the tests described involve complex calculus and stages that are difficult to reproduce or could be quite user dependent. In some cases the more cumbersome tests can be performed using proprietary software provided by the vendor of the equipment, but this “black box” solution makes the process rather opaque. Purpose The aim is to provide a standardization tool for the procedures of the PET/CT quality assurance for automating the generation of the regions of interest and the analysis. An ImageJ macro has been developed to facilitate the analysis of three PET/CT quality control procedures included in IAEA-Pub 1393. Materials and methods We have developed an open macro for the public domain Java image processing and analysis program ImageJ . The phantoms described in the IAEA-Pub 1393 have been used to run the quality assurance procedures in a Philips Gemini TF PET/CT (Philips Medical Systems). Three tests have been implemented: spatial resolution, image quality with accuracy of attenuation and scatter corrections and Uniformity of the reconstructed image. Results The results obtained with the software have been compared with those of the commercial software and the literature with good agreement in all cases. The software is available to the community of medical physicists at www.sefm.es . Conclusion The use of jQC-PET allows a standard analysis and the independence of the commercial software. Disclosure The authors are the developers of the software presented here.