Partial Volume Errors Research Articles

Accurate quantification of pulmonary perfusion ratio in children with congenital heart disease using partial volume corrected 4D flow cardiac magnetic resonance.

In children with congenital heart disease (CHD), lung scintigraphy is the reference standard for evaluation of pulmonary perfusion. 4D flow CMR offers a non-ionizing alternative. Due to the intrinsic limitation in the spatial resolution, however, 4D flow may display clinically unacceptable differences compared to the reference standard. This case study aims to highlight the importance of correcting for such partial volume errors to accurately evaluate pulmonary perfusion in small pulmonary arteries. Children with CHD, mainly those with transposition of the great arteries or tetralogy-of-Fallot, referred to CMR from 2020 to 2022 at our clinic, were retrospectively reviewed; n = 37. All patients had been examined with a free breathing, motion-corrected 4D flow protocol. Comparison in pulmonary perfusion (PPR: relative flow through right and left pulmonary arteries) with scintigraphy were performed both for 4D flow before and after partial volume correction. Patients with large pulmonary arteries, 76%, displayed small differences in PPR between modalities (<20%), while patients with arteries of only a few pixels, 24%, displayed differences up to 178%, depending on the relative difference in size between the right and left pulmonary artery. Differences were effectively reduced after partial volume correction (<21%). The present report shows that 4D flow is a promising tool to accurately evaluate the pulmonary perfusion in children with CHD, but that partial volume correction is warranted to overcome its limitation in the spatial resolution. Without such correction, lung scintigraphy is still recommended to ensure high diagnostic certainty in children with small pulmonary arteries.

Partial volume correction of PET image data using geometric transfer matrices based on uniform B-splines

Objective. Most methods for partial volume correction (PVC) of positron emission tomography (PET) data employ anatomical segmentation of images into regions of interest. This approach is not optimal for exploratory functional imaging beyond regional hypotheses. Here, we describe a novel method for unbiased voxel-wise PVC. Approach. B-spline basis functions were combined with geometric transfer matrices to enable a method (bsGTM) that provides PVC or alternatively provides smoothing with minimal regional crosstalk. The efficacy of the proposed method was evaluated using Monte Carlo simulations, human PET data, and murine functional PET data. Main results. In simulations, bsGTM provided recovery of partial volume signal loss comparable to iterative deconvolution, while demonstrating superior resilience to noise. In a real murine PET dataset, bsGTM yielded much higher sensitivity for detecting amphetamine-induced reduction of [11C]raclopride binding potential. In human PET data, bsGTM smoothing enabled increased signal-to-noise ratios with less degradation of binding potentials relative to Gaussian convolution or non-local means. Significance. bsGTM offers improved performance for PVC relative to iterative deconvolution, the current method of choice for voxel-wise PVC, especially in the common PET regime of low signal-to-noise ratio. The new method provides an anatomically unbiased way to compensate partial volume errors in cases where anatomical segmentation is unavailable or of questionable relevance or accuracy.

Partial voxel interpolation to reduce partial volume error of cardiac computed tomography ventricular volumetry in patients with congenital heart disease.

Varying degrees of partial volume error depending on the complexity of the endocardial borders are inevitable in threshold-based cardiac computed tomography (CT) ventricular volumetry. These errors can potentiallybe reduced by using a partial voxel interpolation (PVI) method, but this has not been tested for cardiac CT ventricular volumetry. To evaluate the partial volume error-reducing effects of the PVI method in cardiac CT ventricular volumetry among patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). The cardiac CT ventricular volumetry data were obtained from 55 patients (median age 12.0 years) with CHD. The ventricular and myocardial volumes, ejection fraction and ventricular mass-volume ratio were quantified and compared before and after the PVI method. The correlation between the myocardial volumes in theend-systolic and end-diastolic phases was tested. The effect of the PVI method on the classification of ventricular hypertrophy was evaluated. The indexed ventricular volumes after PVI were significantly smaller (7.4-11.5%) than those before PVI (P<0.001). In contrast, the indexed myocardial volumes were significantly larger (6.2-27.7%) after PVI (P<0.001). The ejection fractions and mass-volume ratios were significantly larger (1.6-2.2% and 19.7-42.5%, respectively) after PVI (P<0.001 and P<0.001, respectively). The indexed myocardial masses showed prominently high correlation between the end-systolic and end-diastolic phases (R, 0.961-0.990; P<0.001). The proportions of no and severe hypertrophy were significantly decreased (P<0.002) and increased (P<0.032), respectively, after the application of the PVI method. The PVI method can reduce partial volume error in cardiac CT ventricular volumetry among patients with CHD.

CaliPER: A software for blood-free parametric Patlak mapping using PET/MRI input function

Routine clinical use of absolute PET quantification techniques is limited by the need for serial arterial blood sampling for input function and more importantly by the lack of automated pharmacokinetic analysis tools that can be readily implemented in clinic with minimal effort. PET/MRI provides the ability for absolute quantification of PET probes without the need for serial arterial blood sampling using image-derived input functions (IDIFs). Here we introduce caliPER, a modular and scalable software for simplified pharmacokinetic modeling of PET probes with irreversible uptake or binding based on PET/MR IDIFs and Patlak Plot analysis. caliPER generates regional values or parametric maps of net influx rate (Ki) using reconstructed dynamic PET images and anatomical MRI aligned to PET for IDIF vessel delineation. We evaluated the performance of caliPER for blood-free region-based and pixel-wise Patlak analyses of [18F] FDG by comparing caliPER IDIF to serial arterial blood input functions and its application in imaging brain glucose hypometabolism in Frontotemporal dementia. IDIFs corrected for partial volume errors including spill-out and spill-in effects were similar to arterial blood input functions with a general bias of around 6–8%, even for arteries <5 mm. The Ki and cerebral metabolic rate of glucose estimated using caliPER IDIF were similar to estimates using arterial blood sampling (<2%) and within limits of whole brain values reported in literature. Overall, caliPER is a promising tool for irreversible PET tracer quantification and can simplify the ability to perform parametric analysis in clinical settings without the need for blood sampling.

Noninvasive Quantification of Cerebral Blood Flow Using Hybrid PET/MR Imaging to Extract the [15 O]H2 O Image-Derived Input Function Free of Partial Volume Errors.

Quantification of cerebral blood flow (CBF) with [15 O]H2 O-positron emission tomography (PET) requires arterial sampling to measure the input function. This invasive procedure can be avoided by extracting an image-derived input function (IDIF); however, IDIFs are sensitive to partial volume errors due to the limited spatial resolution of PET. To present an alternative hybrid PET/MR imaging of CBF (PMRFlowIDIF ) that uses phase-contrast (PC) MRI measurements of whole-brain (WB) CBF to calibrate an IDIF extracted from a WB [15 O]H2 O time-activity curve. Technical development and validation. Twelve juvenile Duroc pigs (83% female). Thirteen healthy individuals (38% female). 3 T; gradient-echo PC-MRI. PMRFlowIDIF was validated against PET-only in a porcine model that included arterial sampling. CBF maps were generated by applying PMRFlowIDIF and two previous PMRFlow methods (PC-PET and double integration method [DIM]) to [15 O]H2 O-PET data acquired from healthy individuals. PMRFlow and PET CBF measurements were compared with regression and correlation analyses. Paired t-tests were performed to evaluate differences. Potential biases were assessed using one-sample t-tests. Reliability was assessed by intraclass correlation coefficients. Statistical significance: =0.05. In the animal study, strong agreement was observed between PMRFlowIDIF (average voxel-wise CBF, 58.0 ± 16.9mL/100 g/min) and PET (63.0 ± 18.9mL/100 g/min). In the human study, PMRFlowDIM (y=1.11x - 5.16, R2 =0.99 ± 0.01) and PMRFlowPC-PET (y=0.87x + 3.82, R2 =0.97 ± 0.02) performed similarly to PMRFlowIDIF, and CBF was within the expected range (eg, 49.7 ± 7.2mL/100 g/min for gray matter). Accuracy of PMRFlowIDIF was confirmed in the animal study with the primary source of error attributed to differences in WB CBF measured by PC MRI and PET. In the human study, differences in CBF from PMRFlowIDIF , PMRFlowDIM , and PMRFlowPC-PET were due to the latter two not accounting for blood-borne activity. 2 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE: 1.

Incorporation of anatomical MRI knowledge for enhanced mapping of brain metabolism using functional PET

Functional positron emission tomography (fPET) imaging using continuous infusion of [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is a novel neuroimaging technique to track dynamic glucose utilization in the brain. In comparison to conventional static or dynamic bolus PET, fPET maintains a sustained supply of glucose in the blood plasma which improves sensitivity to measure dynamic glucose changes in the brain, and enables mapping of dynamic brain activity in task-based and resting-state fPET studies. However, there is a trade-off between temporal resolution and spatial noise due to the low concentration of FDG and the limited sensitivity of multi-ring PET scanners. Images from fPET studies suffer from partial volume errors and residual scatter noise that may cause the cerebral metabolic functional maps to be biased. Gaussian smoothing filters used to denoise the fPET images are suboptimal, as they introduce additional partial volume errors. In this work, a post-processing framework based on a magnetic resonance (MR) Bowsher-like prior was used to improve the spatial and temporal signal to noise characteristics of the fPET images. The performance of the MR guided method was compared with conventional denosing methods using both simulated and in vivo task fPET datasets. The results demonstrate that the MR-guided fPET framework denoises the fPET images and improves the partial volume correction, consequently enhancing the sensitivity to identify brain activation, and improving the anatomical accuracy for mapping changes of brain metabolism in response to a visual stimulation task. The framework extends the use of functional PET to investigate the dynamics of brain metabolic responses for faster presentation of brain activation tasks, and for applications in low dose PET imaging.

Compensating for choroid plexus based off-target signal in the hippocampus using 18F-flortaucipir PET

Purpose: The hippocampus is affected by tau pathology early in Alzheimer's disease (AD) development. Accurate quantification of hippocampal tau signal using the tau-PET tracer 18F-flortaucipir is complicated, however, by off-target binding in the adjacent choroid plexus. We here present a new method for compensating for this off-target choroid plexus signal.Methods: As off-target binding in the choroid plexus is known to be higher using 18F-flortaucipir compared to 18F-RO948, we created a binary hippocampal mask in template space where 18F-flortaucipir signal was higher than 18F-RO948, using data from 30 patients that underwent both 18F-flortaucipir and 18F-RO948 PET. This mask, presumably representing hippocampal voxels affected by off-target binding from the choroid plexus, was then converted to native space and applied as an exclusion mask to 145 patients across the AD-spectrum scanned with 18F-flortaucipir. As an alternative approach exclusion masks were generated by expanding the choroid plexus ROI in native space. Results were analysed both without and with partial volume error correction (non-PVEc/PVEc).Results: Unmasked hippocampal standardized uptake value ratios (SUVR) were significantly correlated to choroid plexus SUVRs using both non-PVEc (p < 0.001, r = 0.28) and PVEc data (p < 0.05, r = 0.18). After applying the mask, however, these correlations disappeared. The diagnostic accuracy in separating cognitively impaired (CI) from cognitively unimpaired (CU) subjects improved after masking, from an AUC of 0.792 (95% C.I.,0.715–0.869) to 0.837 (95% C.I.,0.768–0.906) for non-PVEc data (p < 0.001), and from 0.798 (95% C.I.,0.722–0.873) to 0.834 (95% C.I.,0.766–0.903) for PVEc data (p < 0.001). The correlations to memory improved significantly for MMSE for unmasked vs. masked data both without (r = −0.440 vs. r = −0.499, p < 0.001) and with (r = −0.454 vs. r = −0.503, p < 0.001) PVEc. Similar results were found using the ADAS-Cog Delayed Word Recall test.Conclusion: Choroid plexus off-target binding interferes with the estimation of true hippocampal retention using 18F-flortaucipir PET. Using a mask to correct for this off-target signal, we improved the diagnostic accuracy of 18F-flortaucipir in the hippocampus and the correlation between 18F-flortaucipir hippocampal SUVR and cognitive measures.

Spatial Resolution and the Magnitude of Infarct Volume Measurement Error in DWI in Acute Ischemic Stroke.

Infarct volume in acute ischemic stroke is an important prognostic marker and determines endovascular treatment decisions. This study evaluates the magnitude and potential clinical impact of the error related to partial volume effects in infarct volume measurement on diffusion-weighted MR imaging in acute stroke and explores how increasing spatial resolution could reduce this error. Diffusion-weighted imaging of 393 patients with acute stroke, of whom 56 had anterior circulation large-vessel occlusion, was coregistered to standard space. Lesion boundaries were manually segmented. A 3D lesion-volume model was resampled for voxel sizes from 4 × 4 × 8 to 1 × 1 × 2 mm, and the surface-volume, corresponding to the partial volume error, was calculated. The number of cases with anterior circulation large-vessel occlusion, in which the endovascular therapy core threshold of 70 mL was contained within the margin of error, was calculated as a function of imaging resolution. The mean infarct core volume was 27.2 ± 49.9 mL. The mean surface volume was 14.7 ± 20.8 mL for 2 × 2 × 4 mm resolution and 7.4 ± 10.7 mL for 1 × 1 × 2 mm resolution. With a resolution of 2 × 2 × 4 mm, 70 mL was contained within the margin of error in 7/56 cases (12.5%) with large-vessel occlusion, while with a 1 × 1 × 2 mm voxel size, the margin of error was 3/56 (5%). The lesion-volume range of potentially misclassified lesions dropped from 46.5-94.1 mL for a 2 × 2 × 4 mm resolution to 64.4-80.1 mL for a 1 × 1 × 2 mm resolution. Partial volume effect is an important source of error in infarct volume measurement in acute stroke. Increasing spatial resolution substantially decreases the mean error. Standard use of high-resolution DWI should be considered to increase the reliability of infarct volume measurements.

Using fMRI to investigate the potential cause of inverse oxygenation reported in fNIRS studies of motor imagery

Motor imagery (MI) is a commonly used cognitive task in brain–computer interface (BCI) applications because it produces reliable activity in motor-planning regions. However, a number of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) studies have reported the unexpected finding of inverse oxygenation: increased deoxyhemoglobin and decreased oxyhemoglobin during task periods. This finding questions the reliability of fNIRS for BCI applications given that MI activation should result in a focal increase in blood oxygenation. In an attempt to elucidate this phenomenon, fMRI and fNIRS data were acquired on 15 healthy participants performing a MI task. The fMRI data provided global coverage of brain activity, thus allowing visualization of all potential brain regions activated and deactivated during task periods. Indeed, fMRI results from seven subjects included activation in the primary motor cortex and/or the pre-supplementary motor area during the rest periods in addition to the expected activation in the supplementary motor and premotor areas. Of these seven subjects, two showed inverse oxygenation with fNIRS. The proximity of the regions showing inverse oxygenation to the motor planning regions suggests that inverse activation detected by fNIRS may likely be a consequence of partial volume errors due to the sensitivity of the optodes to both primary motor and motor planning regions.

Abstract TMP112: Evidence of Diffuse Cortical Vascular Dysfunction in Patients With White Matter Hyperintensities

Introduction: White matter hyper intensities (WMHs) on T2 FLAIR images, are associated with cognitive decline in older populations. WMHs exhibit diminished vascular reactivity compared to normal appearing white matter (Sam et al. AJNR 2016). We hypothesize that patients with WMHs have diminished cortical vascular reactivity compared to controls. Methods: 23 patients with WMHs and 21 controls were studied. Patient inclusion criteria were: no cortical infarcts, Fazekas Grade &gt;= 2, no vascular stenoses &gt;= 70%, and no history of cardio/pulmonary disease. MRI protocol and vasodilatory stimulus The 3T MRI protocol included a 1 mm isotopic T1 3D sequence and a 3.5 mm isotropic T2* BOLD sequence (30 msec echo time). Cerebrovascular reactivity ( CVR ) was measured using 2 step changes in end-tidal pCO2 (from 40 to 50mmHg) using a controlled gas delivery system (RespirAct TM ) during BOLD imaging. Recent work has shown an age invariant cortical response to this stimulus delivery method (McKetton et al Neuroimage 2018). Image Analysis CVR magnitude maps, expressed in %BOLD/mmHg, were generated by calculating the linear regression of the BOLD response with the pCO2. The BOLD response was fitted with an exponential function in order to measure its time characteristic TAU providing a measure of speed of vascular response. Maps were corrected for partial volume errors. (Figure 1A). Average CVR and TAU within frontal, occipital, parietal and temporal grey matter were calculated for all subjects. t-tests corrected for multiple comparisons were calculated between patients and controls. Results: CVR magnitude was lower and TAU longer in patients with WMHs compared to normal controls in all four lobes (p &lt; 0.05) (Figure 1B). Conclusions: Patients with moderate to severe WMHs show diffuse impairment of vascular reactivity affecting the cerebral cortex even in the absence of significant large vessel steno-occlusive disease and in the absence of visible cortical disease on MRI.

Quantitative accuracy of serotonergic neurotransmission imaging with high-resolution 123I SPECT.

Serotonin transporter (SERT) imaging can be used to study the role of regional abnormalities of neurotransmitter release in various mental disorders and to study the mechanism of action of therapeutic drugs or drugs' abuse. We examine the quantitative accuracy and reproducibility that can be achieved with high-resolution SPECT of serotonergic neurotransmission. Binding potential (BP) of (123)I labeled tracer specific for midbrain SERT was assessed in 20 healthy persons. The effects of scatter, attenuation, partial volume, misregistration and statistical noise were estimated using phantom and human studies. Without any correction, BP was underestimated by 73%. The partial volume error was the major component in this underestimation whereas the most critical error for the reproducibility was misplacement of region of interest (ROI). The proper ROI registration, the use of the multiple head gamma camera with transmission based scatter correction introduce more relevant results. However, due to the small dimensions of the midbrain SERT structures and poor spatial resolution of SPECT, the improvement without the partial volume correction is not great enough to restore the estimate of BP to that of the true one.

Partial-volume correction in PET: validation of an iterative postreconstruction method with phantom and patient data.

Partial-volume errors (PVEs) in PET can cause incorrect estimation of radiopharmaceutical uptake in small tumors. An iterative postreconstruction method was evaluated that corrects for PVEs without a priori knowledge of tumor size or background. Volumes of interest (VOIs) were drawn on uncorrected PET images. PVE-corrected images were produced using an iterative 3-dimensional deconvolution algorithm and a local point spread function. The VOIs were projected on the corrected image to estimate the PVE-corrected mean activity concentration. These corrected mean values were compared with uncorrected maximum and mean values. Simulated data were generated as a first test of the correction algorithm. Phantom measurements were made using (18)F-FDG-filled spheres in a scattering medium. Clinical validation used 154 surrogate tumors from 9 patients. The surrogate tumors were blood-pool images of the descending aorta as well as mesenteric and iliac arteries and veins. Surrogate tumors ranged in diameter from 5 to 25 mm. Analysis used (18)F-FDG and (11)C-CO datasets (both dynamic and static). Values representing "truth" were derived from imaging the blood pool in large structures (e.g., the left ventricle, left atrium, or sections of the aorta) where PVEs were negligible. Surrogate tumor sizes were measured from contrast CT. The PVE-correction technique, when applied to the mean value in spheric phantoms, yielded recovery coefficients of 87% for an 8-mm-diameter sphere and between 100% and 103% for spheres between 13 and 29 mm. For the human studies, PVE-corrected data recovered a large fraction of the true activity concentration (86% +/- 7% for an 8-mm-diameter tumor and 98% +/- 8% for tumors between 10 and 24 mm). For tumors smaller than 18 mm, the PVE-corrected mean values were less biased (P<0.05) than the uncorrected maximum or mean values. Iterative postreconstruction PVE correction generated more accurate uptake measurements in subcentimeter tumors for both phantoms and patients than the uncorrected values. The method eliminates the requirement for segmenting anatomic data and estimating tumor metabolic size or tumor background level. This technique applies a PVE correction to the mean voxel value within a VOI, yielding a more accurate estimate of uptake than the maximum voxel value.

Minimizing lipid signal bleed in brain (1) H chemical shift imaging by post-acquisition grid shifting.

Low spatial resolution in conventional 1H brain chemical shifting imaging (CSI) studies causes partial volume error (PVE) or signal "bleed" that is especially deleterious to voxels near the scalp. The standard spatial apodization approach adversely affects spatial resolution. Here, a novel automated post-processing strategy of partial volume correction employing grid shifting ("PANGS") is presented, which minimizes residual PVE without compromising spatial resolution. PANGS shifts the locations of the reconstruction coordinates in a designated region of image space-the scalp, to match the tissue "centers-of-mass" instead of the geometric centers of each voxel, by iteratively minimizing the PVE from the scalp into outside voxels. PANGS' performance was evaluated by numerical simulation, and in 3 Tesla 1H CSI human studies employing outer volume suppression and long echo times. PANGS reduced lipid contamination of cortical spectra by up to 86% (54% on average). Metabolite maps exhibited significantly less lipid artifact than conventional and spatially-filtered CSI. All methods generated quantitatively identical spectral peak areas from central brain locations, but spatial filtering increased spectral linewidths and reduced spatial resolution. PANGS significantly reduces lipid artifacts in 1H brain CSI spectra and metabolite maps, and improves metabolite detection in cortical regions without compromising resolution.

New Approach to Quantification of Molecularly Targeted Radiotracer Uptake from Hybrid Cardiac SPECT/CT: Methodology and Validation

Quantification of molecularly targeted radiotracer uptake in the myocardium from SPECT remains challenging in part due to potentially low levels of focal tracer uptake of presently available molecularly targeted agents and further degradation of cardiac SPECT by extracardiac radioactivity and partial-volume effect. The purpose of this study was to derive and validate a new SPECT quantification method for assessments of absolute radiotracer uptake in the myocardium. The method was integrated with a hybrid micro-SPECT/CT imaging protocol to calculate radiotracer uptake of a molecularly targeted agent in the ischemic myocardium. CT coregistered with SPECT was used to identify the position and orientation of the left ventricle. Corrections for extracardiac activity and partial-volume errors were performed via a heuristic method derived with a total count sampling scheme. Myocardial radiotracer uptake was quantified from SPECT using an external point source as a known reference. Methods were validated using an ischemic rat model injected with a (99m)Tc-labeled SPECT radiotracer targeted at αvβ3 integrin. SPECT-quantified myocardial radiotracer uptake was compared with postmortem myocardial tissue well-counted radioactivity. Initial correlation between SPECT-quantified and well-counted radioactivity was fair (R(2) = 0.19, y = 0.50x + 0.05, P = 0.06) when no correction was applied to SPECT quantification. Correlation was significantly improved with tissue weight correction (R(2) = 0.84, y = 1.82x - 0.01, P < 0.001), and a trend toward the improvement of correlation was observed with extracardiac activity correction (R(2) = 0.85, y = 1.54x - 0.01, P < 0.001) and partial-volume correction (R(2) = 0.86, y = 1.68x - 0.01, P < 0.001). Reproducibility of the SPECT quantification was excellent, either with no correction (R(2) = 0.99, y = 1.00x + 0.00, P < 0.001) or with all corrections (R(2) = 1.00, y = 1.00x - 0.00, P < 0.001). Corrections for the myocardial tissue weight, extracardiac activity, and partial-volume errors are crucial for precise assessments of myocardial radiotracer uptake using micro-SPECT/CT. The quantitative SPECT/CT approach developed provides a reasonable and reproducible in vivo estimation of absolute radiotracer uptake in a model of myocardial injury and should permit quantitative serial monitoring of subtle changes in the myocardial uptake of targeted radiotracers.

Brain Docosahexaenoic Acid [DHA] Incorporation and Blood Flow Are Increased in Chronic Alcoholics: A Positron Emission Tomography Study Corrected for Cerebral Atrophy

ObjectiveChronic alcohol dependence has been associated with disturbed behavior, cerebral atrophy and a low plasma concentration of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22∶6n-3), particularly if liver disease is present. In animal models, excessive alcohol consumption is reported to reduce brain DHA concentration, suggesting disturbed brain DHA metabolism. We hypothesized that brain DHA metabolism also is abnormal in chronic alcoholics.MethodsWe compared 15 non-smoking chronic alcoholics, studied within 7 days of their last drink, with 22 non-smoking healthy controls. Using published neuroimaging methods with positron emission tomography (PET), we measured regional coefficients (K*) and rates (Jin) of DHA incorporation from plasma into the brain of each group using [1-11C]DHA, and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) using [15O]water. Data were partial volume error corrected for brain atrophy. Plasma unesterified DHA concentration also was quantified.ResultsMean K* for DHA was significantly and widely elevated by 10–20%, and rCBF was elevated by 7%–34%, in alcoholics compared with controls. Unesterified plasma DHA did not differ significantly between groups nor did whole brain Jin, the product of K* and unesterified plasma DHA concentration.DiscussionSignificantly higher values of K* for DHA in alcoholics indicate increased brain avidity for DHA, thus a brain DHA metabolic deficit vis-à-vis plasma DHA availability. Higher rCBF in alcoholics suggests increased energy consumption. These changes may reflect a hypermetabolic state related to early alcohol withdrawal, or a general brain metabolic change in chronic alcoholics.

The effect of breathing irregularities on quantitative accuracy of respiratory gated PET/CT

4D positron emission tomography and computed tomography (PET∕CT) can be used to reduce motion artifacts by correlating the raw PET data with the respiratory cycle. The accuracy of each PET phase is dependent on the reproducibility and consistency of the breathing cycle during acquisition. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of breathing amplitude and phase irregularities on the quantitative accuracy of 4D PET standardized uptake value (SUV) measurements. In addition, the magnitude of quantitative errors due to respiratory motion and partial volume error are compared. Phantom studies were performed using spheres filled with (18)F ranging from 9 to 47 mm in diameter with background activity. Motion was simulated using patient breathing data. The authors compared the accuracy of SUVs derived from gated PET (4 bins and 8 bins, phase-based) for ideal, average, and highly irregular breathing patterns. Under ideal conditions, gated PET produced SUVs that were within (-5.4 ± 5.3)% of the static phantom measurements averaged across all sphere sizes. With breathing irregularities, the quantitative accuracy of gated PET decreased. Gated PET SUVs (best of 4 bins) were (-9.6 ± 13.0)% of the actual value for an average breather and decreased to (-17.1 ± 10.8)% for a highly irregular breather. Without gating, the differences in the SUV from actual value were (-28.5 ± 18.2)%, (-25.9 ± 14.4)%, and (-27.9 ± 18.2)% for the ideal, average, and highly irregular breather, respectively. Breathing irregularities reduce the quantitative accuracy of gated PET∕CT. Current gated PET techniques may underestimate the actual lesion SUV due to phase assignment errors. Evaluation of respiratory trace is necessary to assess accuracy of data binning and its effect on 4D PET SUVs.

Anisotropic partial volume CSF modeling for EEG source localization

Electromagnetic source localization (ESL) provides non-invasive evaluation of brain electrical activity for neurology research and clinical evaluation of neurological disorders such as epilepsy. Accurate ESL results are dependent upon the use of patient specific models of bioelectric conductivity. While the effects of anisotropic conductivities in the skull and white matter have been previously studied, little attention has been paid to the accurate modeling of the highly conductive cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) region. This study examines the effect that partial volume errors in CSF segmentations have upon the ESL bioelectric model. These errors arise when segmenting sulcal channels whose widths are similar to the resolution of the magnetic resonance (MR) images used for segmentation, as some voxels containing both CSF and gray matter cannot be definitively assigned a single label. These problems, particularly prevalent in pediatric populations, make voxelwise segmentation of CSF compartments a difficult problem. Given the high conductivity of CSF, errors in modeling this region may result in large errors in the bioelectric model. We introduce here a new approach for using estimates of partial volume fractions in the construction of patient specific bioelectric models. In regions where partial volume errors are expected, we use a layered gray matter-CSF model to construct equivalent anisotropic conductivity tensors. This allows us to account for the inhomogeneity of the tissue within each voxel. Using this approach, we are able to reduce the error in the resulting bioelectric models, as evaluated against a known high resolution model. Additionally, this model permits us to evaluate the effects of sulci modeling errors and quantify the mean error as a function of the change in sulci width. Our results suggest that both under and over-estimation of the CSF region leads to significant errors in the bioelectric model. While a model with fixed partial volume fraction is able to reduce this error, we see the largest improvement when using voxel specific partial volume estimates. Our cross-model analyses suggest that an approximately linear relationship exists between sulci error and the error in the resulting bioelectric model. Given the difficulty of accurately segmenting narrow sulcal channels, this suggests that our approach may be capable of improving the accuracy of patient specific bioelectric models by several percent, while introducing only minimal additional computational requirements.

DTI segmentation via the combined analysis of connectivity maps and tensor distances

We describe a novel approach to extract the neural tracts of interest from a diffusion tensor image (DTI). Compared to standard streamline tractography, existing probabilistic methods are able to capture fiber paths that deviate from the main tensor diffusion directions. At the same time, tensor clustering methods are able to more precisely delimit the border of the bundle. To the best of our knowledge, we propose the first algorithm which combines the advantages supplied by probabilistic and tensor clustering approaches. The algorithm includes a post-processing step to limit partial-volume related segmentation errors. We extensively test the accuracy of our algorithm on different configurations of a DTI software phantom for which we systematically vary the image noise, the number of gradients, the geometry of the fiber paths and the angle between adjacent and crossing fiber bundles. The reproducibility of the algorithm is supported by the segmentation of the corticospinal tract of nine patients. Additional segmentations of the corticospinal tract, the arcuate fasciculus, and the optic radiations are in accordance with anatomical knowledge. The required user interaction is comparable to that of streamline tractography, which allows for an uncomplicated integration of the algorithm into the clinical routine.

Development and Application of a Multimodal Contrast Agent for SPECT/CT Hybrid Imaging

Hybrid or multimodality imaging is often applied in order to take advantage of the unique and complementary strengths of individual imaging modalities. This hybrid noninvasive imaging approach can provide critical information about anatomical structure in combination with physiological function or targeted molecular signals. While recent advances in software image fusion techniques and hybrid imaging systems have enabled efficient multimodal imaging, accessing the full potential of this technique requires development of a new toolbox of multimodal contrast agents that enhance the imaging process. Toward that goal, we report the development of a hybrid probe for both single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) imaging that facilitates high-sensitivity SPECT and high spatial resolution CT imaging. In this work, we report the synthesis and evaluation of a novel intravascular, multimodal dendrimer-based contrast agent for use in preclinical SPECT/CT hybrid imaging systems. This multimodal agent offers a long intravascular residence time (t(1/2) = 43 min) and sufficient contrast-to-noise for effective serial intravascular and blood pool imaging with both SPECT and CT. The colocalization of the dendritic nuclear and X-ray contrasts offers the potential to facilitate image analysis and quantification by enabling correction for SPECT attenuation and partial volume errors at specified times with the higher resolution anatomic information provided by the circulating CT contrast. This may allow absolute quantification of intramyocardial blood volume and blood flow and may enable the ability to visualize active molecular targeting following clearance from the blood.

TH‐C‐110‐02: Hybrid Calibration and Display of CT Images in the Gram Scale: Can We Ever Give up the HU Unit?

The Hounsfield unit (HU) of CT images is computed with reference to distilled water and air at standard temperature and pressure (STP). These water calibrations are made with idealized, circular, water or water equivalent phantoms. Since the atomic compositions of soft tissues are close to water and the patients somewhat oval in shape, the HU scale has served well for subjective image viewing for approaching 4 decades. Specific human bodies can however have large differences in size, shape and composition relative to the water phantoms.Even with homogeneous phantoms, HU units are known to vary from scanner to scanner, tube changes, manufacture software, table height, slice thickness, FOV, kVp, filtration, and other scan parameters. One phantom study for example found differences of 7 to 73 HU for the same target on 8 scanners. HU values also vary with the patientˈs physical composition including shape, size, and bone/muscle/ fat ratios. HU reliability with MDCT is further reduced from higher scatter and beam inhomogeneity, proprietary scatter correction methods, greater demand on beam shaping and maintaining subjective image quality. The CT scanner point‐spread‐function (PSF) produces errors in HU values for small objects and the edges of large ones. The measurement accuracies of dimensions, areas, and volumes can be greatly reduced. The partial volume error based on voxel size is well recognized but a ‘PSF volume error’ may be defined that is even larger. Because of all of these variations, the residual errors that remain after water calibrations are of sufficient magnitude to degrade many quantitative CT measurements, especially for higher z materials such as calcium and iodine. The advancement of quantitative CT applications requires more advanced calibration methods for improvements in accuracy, precision, and standardization of measurements of HU (or mass) and dimensions.This talk will explore a new CT calibration method (Hybrid calibration) and a new density scale to replace the water scale. The Hybrid calibration method provides images with voxel intensities expressed in density units (mg/cm3). The calibration method uses in vivo fat/muscle or blood to calibrate for soft tissue densities. The calibrations are therefore scan and patient specific. Higher z targets (calcium, bone, iodine, etc.) are also calibrated for beam energy using phantoms scanned simultaneously with or independent of the patient. The Hybrid calibrated images are displayed with voxels and W/L settings expressed in mg/cm3 units in place of HU values. A density scale for image display is proposed that emulates the current HU scale and would require minimal training or changes for image display and reading. The use of these methods in coronary calcium scoring and bone densitometry will be demonstrated.Learning Objectives:1. Learn the limitations of water calibration for quantitative CT applications.2. Basic understanding of a new, non‐water based calibration method.3. Understand the problems of quantitative CT of small and large calcium or iodine targets.