Even though positron emission tomography has been a popular oncology imaging tool for years, the quality in this technique does suffer when scanning moving organs like the heart. To overcome the blurring of the image, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles have used in-house developed “motion-frozen” technology in combination with a Siemens high definition PET scanner to spot myocardial defects that would otherwise have been invisible.
From a statement by the Society of Nuclear Medicine on the study presentation at the 56th Annual Meeting:
The high-definition PET scanner uses "spatially variant detector spatial response" when the image is reconstructed, correcting for distortion and noise that can make images hard to interpret. The motion-frozen technology, originally developed by Piotr Slomka, research scientist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, is an image-processing technique that compensates for the motion of the beating heart. It removes unwanted blur and thus improves the diagnostic value of imaging.
In the study, the combined technologies were used to obtain images of ten patients who were referred for PET myocardial viability assessments at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. For these patients, the diagnostic results were modified after imaging with the new technologies—sometimes drastically. By combining high-definition PET and motion-frozen technology, the resulting cardiac PET images provided physiological details that were previously hidden from physicians.
Researchers are investigating expanding this technique to correct for the distortions that arise from respiratory motion during imaging.
Press release: "Motion-Frozen" Technology Meets High-Definition PET: Helping Heart Patients
Image: MF-HD*PET detected an apical inferior defect (red arrows) not visible without the use of this image processing technique.