Accuracy of Dose Calibrators for 68Ga PET Imaging: Unexpected Findings in a Multicenter Clinical Pretrial Assessment.

We report the discovery of a systematic miscalibration during the work-up process for site validation of a multicenter clinical PET imaging trial using 68Ga, which manifested as a consistent and reproducible underestimation in the quantitative accuracy (assessed by SUV) of a range of PET systems from different manufacturers at several different facilities around Australia. Methods: Sites were asked to follow a strict preparation protocol to create a radioactive phantom with 68Ga to be imaged using a standard clinical protocol before commencing imaging in the trial. All sites had routinely used 68Ga for clinical PET imaging for many years. The reconstructed image data were transferred to an imaging core laboratory for analysis, along with information about ancillary equipment such as the radionuclide dose calibrator. Fourteen PET systems were assessed from 10 nuclear medicine facilities in Australia, with the aim for each PET system being to produce images within 5% of the true SUV. Results: At initial testing, 10 of the 14 PET systems underestimated the SUV by 15% on average (range, 13%-23%). Multiple PET systems at one site, from two different manufacturers, were all similarly affected, suggesting a common cause. We eventually identified an incorrect factory-shipped dose calibrator setting from a single manufacturer as being the cause. The calibrator setting for 68Ga was subsequently adjusted by the users so that the reconstructed images produced accurate values. Conclusion: PET imaging involves a chain of measurements and calibrations to produce accurate quantitative performance. Testing of the entire chain is simple, however, and should form part of any quality assurance program or prequalifying site assessment before commencing a quantitative imaging trial or clinical imaging.

Effect of voxel size when calculating patient specific radionuclide dosimetry estimates using direct Monte Carlo simulation.

The scalable XCAT voxelised phantom was used with the GATE Monte Carlo toolkit to investigate the effect of voxel size on dosimetry estimates of internally distributed radionuclide calculated using direct Monte Carlo simulation. A uniformly distributed Fluorine-18 source was simulated in the Kidneys of the XCAT phantom with the organ self dose (kidney ← kidney) and organ cross dose (liver ← kidney) being calculated for a number of organ and voxel sizes. Patient specific dose factors (DF) from a clinically acquired FDG PET/CT study have also been calculated for kidney self dose and liver ← kidney cross dose. Using the XCAT phantom it was found that significantly small voxel sizes are required to achieve accurate calculation of organ self dose. It has also been used to show that a voxel size of 2 mm or less is suitable for accurate calculations of organ cross dose. To compensate for insufficient voxel sampling a correction factor is proposed. This correction factor is applied to the patient specific dose factors calculated with the native voxel size of the PET/CT study.