The primary goal of this research proposal is to design, construct and perform a limited validation of a new tomograph which has the capability of operating either in X-ray CT or positron tomography (PET) mode. The proposal is to mount an X-ray CT and two arrays of PET detectors on a single support within the same gantry, and rotate the support to acquire a full projection data set for both imaging modalities. The tomograph will therefore acquire functional and anatomical images which are accurately coregistered, without the use of external markers or internal landmarks. A secondary objective is to use the CT data to improve the correction of the PET data for attenuation and for contamination from scattered photons. By using the CT image in a novel way, low-noise attenuation correction factors for PET can be generated, and by integrating the anatomical information from the CT into recently-developed scatter correction methods, an accurate scatter correction can be obtained. The use of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is a rapidly growing application area for PET, in which the increased glucose metabolism of neoplasms has been used to determine the presence of recurrent glioma versus radiation necrosis, recurrent colon carcinoma versus surgical scar and radiation changes, and radiation necrosis versus reactive mediastinal lymph node. A major difficulty in all these important applications of PET is the accurate localization of the increased glucose uptake to a specific anatomical structure. While multi-modality image alignment has been extensively developed for the brain, little work has been done in the thorax and abdomen owing to the technical difficulties of identifying common structures and to the tendency for internal organs to move within the body. In the proposed combined modality PET/CT tomograph, functional and anatomical images are intrinsically co-registered. For this proposal, a preliminary study of the capability of the new tomograph to detect and localize tumors will be performed in a limited series of ten patients with known malignant disease.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01CA065856-01A1
Application #
2109013
Study Section
Diagnostic Radiology Study Section (RNM)
Project Start
1995-07-01
Project End
1998-06-30
Budget Start
1995-07-01
Budget End
1996-06-30
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
1995
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pittsburgh
Department
Radiation-Diagnostic/Oncology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
053785812
City
Pittsburgh
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
15213
Townsend, David W (2008) Combined positron emission tomography-computed tomography: the historical perspective. Semin Ultrasound CT MR 29:232-5
Townsend, David W (2008) Positron emission tomography/computed tomography. Semin Nucl Med 38:152-66
Townsend, D W (2008) Multimodality imaging of structure and function. Phys Med Biol 53:R1-R39
Townsend, David W (2008) Dual-modality imaging: combining anatomy and function. J Nucl Med 49:938-55
Townsend, D W (2004) Physical principles and technology of clinical PET imaging. Ann Acad Med Singapore 33:133-45
Townsend, David W (2004) From 3-D positron emission tomography to 3-D positron emission tomography/computed tomography: what did we learn? Mol Imaging Biol 6:275-90
Townsend, David W; Carney, Jonathan P J; Yap, Jeffrey T et al. (2004) PET/CT today and tomorrow. J Nucl Med 45 Suppl 1:4S-14S
Beyer, T; Townsend, D W; Blodgett, T M (2002) Dual-modality PET/CT tomography for clinical oncology. Q J Nucl Med 46:24-34
Townsend, David W; Beyer, Thomas (2002) A combined PET/CT scanner: the path to true image fusion. Br J Radiol 75 Spec No:S24-30
Comtat, Claude; Kinahan, Paul E; Fessler, Jeffrey A et al. (2002) Clinically feasible reconstruction of 3D whole-body PET/CT data using blurred anatomical labels. Phys Med Biol 47:1-20

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