Physical and clinical performance of the mCT time-of-flight PET/CT scanner.

Time-of-flight (TOF) measurement capability promises to improve PET image quality. We characterized the physical and clinical PET performance of the first Biograph mCT TOF PET/CT scanner (Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.) in comparison with its predecessor, the Biograph TruePoint TrueV. In particular, we defined the improvements with TOF. The physical performance was evaluated according to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) NU 2-2007 standard with additional measurements to specifically address the TOF capability. Patient data were analyzed to obtain the clinical performance of the scanner. As expected for the same size crystal detectors, a similar spatial resolution was measured on the mCT as on the TruePoint TrueV. The mCT demonstrated modestly higher sensitivity (increase by 19.7 ± 2.8%) and peak noise equivalent count rate (NECR) (increase by 15.5 ± 5.7%) with similar scatter fractions. The energy, time and spatial resolutions for a varying single count rate of up to 55 Mcps resulted in 11.5 ± 0.2% (FWHM), 527.5 ± 4.9 ps (FWHM) and 4.1 ± 0.0 mm (FWHM), respectively. With the addition of TOF, the mCT also produced substantially higher image contrast recovery and signal-to-noise ratios in a clinically-relevant phantom geometry. The benefits of TOF were clearly demonstrated in representative patient images.

PET/CT Biograph Sensation 16. Performance improvement using faster electronics.

AIM: The new PET/CT Biograph Sensation 16 (BS16) tomographs have faster detector electronics which allow a reduced timing coincidence window and an increased lower energy threshold (from 350 to 400 keV). This paper evaluates the performance of the BS16 PET scanner before and after the Pico-3D electronics upgrade. METHODS: Four NEMA NU 2-2001 protocols, (i) spatial resolution, (ii) scatter fraction, count losses and random measurement, (iii) sensitivity, and (iv) image quality, have been performed. RESULTS: A considerable change in both PET count-rate performance and image quality is observed after electronics upgrade. The new scatter fraction obtained using Pico-3D electronics showed a 14% decrease compared to that obtained with the previous electronics. At the typical patient background activity (5.3 kBq/ml), the new scatter fraction was approximately 0.42. The noise equivalent count-rate (R(NEC)) performance was also improved. The value at which the R(NEC) curve peaked, increased from 3.7 x 10(4) s(-1) at 14 kBq/ml to 6.4 x 10(4) s(-1) at 21 kBq/ml (2R-NEC rate). Likewise, the peak true count-rate value increased from 1.9 x 10(5) s(-1) at 22 kBq/ml to 3.4 x 10(5) s(-1) at 33 kBq/ml. An average increase of 45% in contrast was observed for hot spheres when using AW-OSEM (4ix8s) as the reconstruction algorithm. For cold spheres, the average increase was 12%. CONCLUSION: The performance of the PET scanners in the BS16 tomographs is improved by the optimization of the signal processing. The narrower energy and timing coincidence windows lead to a considerable increase of signal- to-noise ratio. The existing combination of fast detectors and adapted electronics in the BS16 tomographs allow imaging protocols with reduced acquisition time, providing higher patient throughput.