? Cancer management using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is rapidly expanding its role in clinical practice. The high sensitivity of PET to locate cancer can be confounded by the minimal anatomical information it provides. Additional anatomical information would greatly benefit diagnosis, staging, therapy planning and treatment monitoring. ? ? Computed tomography (CT) provides detailed anatomical information but is less sensitive towards cancer localization than PET. Combining PET and CT images would enable accurate localization of the functional information with respect to detailed patient anatomy. In clinical settings, most PET/CT image fusion is currently performed using primitive software solutions or using the new class of combined PET/CT scanners. ? ? A more general solution to this problem could be used with the existing large installed base of individual PET and CT scanners, which will continue to expand. Furthermore, making this available on the physicians' desktop computer (independent of the scanner manufacturer) along with improved display options will greatly increase the clinical efficacy of fusion technology. ? ? The broad, long-term goal of this research and development effort is to develop and validate an advanced PET/CT fusion workstation for analyzing PET/CT whole-body images. The key to the success of the proposed work will be (1) designing a solution that is robust, fast and requires minimum user interactions, and (2) provides a variety of options for displaying and analyzing the fused data. ? ? Phase I work will focus on algorithm development and initial prototyping of a fusion display. In Phase II we will validate the quality of our system using PET/CT lung data sets of cancer patients. Further algorithmic and PET/CT fusion display enhancements will also be conducted in Phase II. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Small Business Innovation Research Grants (SBIR) - Phase II (R44)
Project #
5R44CA099329-03
Application #
6878540
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-SSS-7 (10))
Program Officer
Tandon, Pushpa
Project Start
2004-04-01
Project End
2008-03-31
Budget Start
2005-05-25
Budget End
2008-03-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2005
Total Cost
$389,706
Indirect Cost
Name
Insightful Corporation
Department
Type
DUNS #
150683779
City
Seattle
State
WA
Country
United States
Zip Code
98109
Gong, Lixin; Pathak, Sayan; Alessio, Adam et al. (2006) Automatic arm removal in PET and CT images for deformable registration. Comput Med Imaging Graph 30:469-77