Health Imaging & IT - March 2008 - (Page 39)

Can phantoms bring real benefits? Paul Kinahan, PhD, professor of radiology and director, PET/CT Physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, is particularly interested in PET/CT’s ability to monitor cancer progression or regression. Although detection is its bread and butter for clinical imaging, the modality is being used more and more to assess response to therapy. Research to advance PET/CT is well underway. Manufacturers are working on methods to compensate for respiratory motion, Kinehan says. “Since PET scans take several minutes at best and up to half an hour, there’s a lot of breathing which blurs the image.” measures the speed of light of the photons—the radiation coming from the patient. An effort Kinehan is personally involved with is comparing scanners across the United States. He and others have been sending the same phantom object—roughly a 10-pound equivalent to the human abdomen with a permanent radioactive source inside—to various PET centers where it has been imaged on 10 different systems from a variety of vendors. “Ideally, every scanner would give the same number, but they don’t,” he reports. The actual numbers are very important when measuring response to therapy. Initial results are showing approximately 8 percent variability. Kinehan and his group will present the initial results at the Society of Nuclear Medicine annual meeting in June. The results are particularly helpful for clinicians setting up clinical trials. “This will tell them the errors they can expect,” he says. “We want to know whether the difference is due to real biological change or just random noise and other factors. Knowing the variability allows you to determine the statistical chance of real change.” Another arm of the effort is looking to see whether PET centers can use a calibration phantom model to improve accuracy. “It’s a very exciting time to be involved in it,” Kinehan says. Paul Kinahan, PhD Another area under development is time-of-flight imaging. This method of using faster detectors in the PET scanners Piranha X-Ray Multimeter • All in One, All at Once • Auto Compensation • Enhanced Graphical Display with PDA • R&F, Mammo, CT and Dental • Bluetooth wireless to PDA and PC • Optional mAs and Light Probe RTI Electronics, Inc. 1275 Bloomﬁeld Ave, Bldg. 5, Unit 29A, Fairﬁeld, NJ 07004, Phone: 800-222-7537 sales@rtielectronics.com Visit us at: www.rtielectronics.com March 2008 | Health Imaging & IT 39 HealthImaging.com http://www.rtielectronics.com http://www.rtielectronics.com http://HealthImaging.com

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Health Imaging & IT - March 2008 Table of Contents On the Web The Enterprise: Communicating Better News Update Critical Test Results Management: The Human Touch The Changing Face of the Cath Lab Cardiovascular CT: A Clinical Boon Cardiology PACS: Solutions to Fit Your Needs ACC 08: Building Quality & Value Together Picking the Perfect PACS Displays PET/CT: A Game-Changer in Cancer Patient Management DR: You Gotta Have IT – Delivering Speed, Efficiency, Savings Laser Imagers: Answering the Call for Hard Copy Reader's Resources Stat Sheet

Health Imaging & IT - March 2008

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