Abstract
BackgroundProstate cancer (PCa) represents one of the most common types of cancers facing the male population. Nowadays, to confirm PCa, systematic or multiparametric MRI-targeted transrectal or transperineal biopsies of the prostate are required. However, due to the lack of an accurate imaging technique capable to precisely locate cancerous cells in the prostate, ultrasound biopsies sample random parts of the prostate and, therefore, it is possible to miss regions where those cancerous cells are present. In spite of the improvement with multiparametric MRI, the low reproducibility of its reading undermines the specificity of the method. Recent development of prostate-specific radiotracers has grown the interest on using positron emission tomography (PET) scanners for this purpose, but technological improvements are still required (current scanners have resolutions in the range of 4–5 mm).ResultsThe main goal of this work is to improve state-of-the-art PCa imaging and diagnosis. We have focused our efforts on the design of a novel prostate-dedicated PET scanner, named ProsPET. This system has small scanner dimensions defined by a ring of just 41 cm inner diameter. In this work, we report the design, implementation, and evaluation (both through simulations and real data) of the ProsPET scanner. We have been able to achieve < 2 mm resolution in reconstructed images and high sensitivity. In addition, we have included a comparison with the Philips Gemini-TF scanner, which is used for routine imaging of PCa patients. The ProsPET exhibits better contrast, especially for rod sizes as small as 4.5 mm in diameter. Finally, we also show the first reconstructed image of a PCa patient acquired with the ProsPET.ConclusionsWe have designed and built a prostate specific PET system, with a small footprint and improved spatial resolution when compared to conventional whole-body PET scanners. The gamma ray impact within each detector block includes accurate DOI determination, correcting for the parallax error. The potential role of combined organ-dedicated prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET and ultrasound devices, as a prebiopsy diagnostic tool, could be used to guide sampling of the most aggressive sites in the prostate.
Highlights
Prostate cancer (PCa) is a major worldwide health concern facing the male population
PCa is the most common type of cancer among men in Europe, which is closely followed by lung and colorectal cancer, with 1,276,106 cases reported in 2018 and causing 358,989 deaths (3.8% of all deaths caused by cancer in men) in 2018 [1]
positron emission tomography (PET) spatial resolution All acquired data has been corrected for attenuation and normalization, except in the case of the spatial resolution results were only the normalization was applied
Summary
Prostate cancer (PCa) is a major worldwide health concern facing the male population. The most frequently used method for imaging the prostate is transrectal ultrasound (TRUS). Prostate cancer (PCa) represents one of the most common types of cancers facing the male population. To confirm PCa, systematic or multiparametric MRI-targeted transrectal or transperineal biopsies of the prostate are required. In addition to filling the inserts with FDG, the background of the phantom was filled but with a different FDG concentration. The acquisition of the phantom images lasted 8 min each Both the background level and its standard deviation have been calculated. We have defined 12 different volumes of interest (VOIs), with the size of the small insert, distributed along uniform areas of the phantom and obtained the mean value of each one. The CNR and contrast values as a function of the number of iterations were tested after normalization and attenuation corrections
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