Setup and characterisation according to NEMA NU 4 of thephenoPET scanner, a PET system dedicated for plant sciences.

Objective.ThephenoPET system is a plant dedicated positron emission tomography (PET) scanner consisting of fully digital photo multipliers with lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate crystals and located inside a custom climate chamber. Here, we present the setup ofphenoPET, its data processing and image reconstruction together with its performance.Approach.The performance characterization follows the national electrical manufacturers association (NEMA) standard for small animal PET systems with a number of adoptions due to the vertical oriented bore of a PET for plant sciences. In addition temperature stability and spatial resolution with a hot rod phantom are addressed.Main results.The spatial resolution for a22Na point source at a radial distance of 5 mm to the center of the field-of-view (FOV) is 1.45 mm, 0.82 mm and 1.88 mm with filtered back projection in radial, tangential and axial direction, respectively. A hot rod phantom with18F gives a spatial resolution of up to 1.6 mm. The peak noise-equivalent count rates are 550 kcps @ 35.08 MBq, 308 kcps @ 33 MBq and 45 kcps @ 40.60 MBq for the mouse, rat and monkey size scatter phantoms, respectively. The scatter fractions for these phantoms are 12.63%, 22.64% and 55.90%. We observe a peak sensitivity of up to 3.6% and a total sensitivity of up toSA,tot= 2.17%. For the NEMA image quality phantom we observe a uniformity of %STD= 4.22% with ordinary Poisson maximum likelihood expectation-maximization with 52 iterations. Here, recovery coefficients of 0.12, 0.64, 0.89, 0.93 and 0.91 for 1 mm, 2 mm, 3 mm, 4 mm and 5 mm rods are obtained and spill-over ratios of 0.08 and 0.14 for the water-filled and air-filled inserts, respectively.Significance.ThephenoPET and its laboratory are now in routine operation for the administration of [11C]CO2and non-invasive measurement of transport and allocation of11C-labelled photoassimilates in plants.

Prevalence and clinical implications of anti-PF4/heparin antibodies in intensive care patients: a prospective observational study.

Data on the frequency of anti-platelet factor 4/heparin (PF4/H) antibodies and their association with outcomes in intensive care unit (ICU) patients are sparse. In this prospective, observational study we screened 320 consecutive surgical/medical ICU patients for anti-PF4/H antibodies by enzyme-immunoassay (EIA) for immunoglobulin (Ig)G/A/M separately and heparin-induced platelet activation assay (HIPA) at ICU admission (=baseline), day 6, and day 10. HIPA-positive patients were additionally tested by serotonin-release assay (SRA). Patients tested positive by day 10: for anti-PF4/H-IgG = 17.2 % and for anti-PF4/H-IgM = 42.1 %. Within the first 10 ICU days, platelet counts decreased to <100 Gpt/L in 27.8 % patients. However, only seven patients (2.2 %) experienced a drop in the platelet count ≥50 % beginning after the fourth ICU day. These included the only two patients (0.6 %; 95 % confidence interval 0.08-2.2 %) with heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT). Only strong reactions in the HIPA were reproducible by SRA. This study confirms that testing for anti-PF4/H IgG antibodies should be restricted to ICU-patients who develop a platelet count decrease of >50 % that begins after day four of heparin treatment (which may have started before ICU admission). Among patients testing positive by IgG-specific EIA a functional platelet activation assay should be performed (regarding only strong reactions as positive).