Abstract
Purpose
Continuous bed motion has recently been introduced for whole-body PET/CT, and represents a paradigm shift towards individualized and flexible acquisition without the limitations of bed position-based planning. Increased patient comfort due to lack of abrupt table position changes may be another albeit still unproven advantage. For robust clinical implementation, image quality and quantitative accuracy should at least be equal to the prior standard of bed position-based step-and-shoot imaging.
Methods
The study included 68 consecutive patients referred for whole-body PET/CT for various malignancies. The patients underwent traditional step-and-shoot and novel continuous bed motion acquisition in the same session in a randomized crossover design. The patients and two independent observers were blinded to the sequence of scan techniques. Patient comfort/satisfaction was examined using a standardized questionnaire. SUVs were compared for reference tissue (liver, muscle) and tumour lesions. PET image quality and misalignment with CT images were evaluated on a scale of 1 – 4.
Results
Patients preferred continuous bed motion over step-and-shoot (P = 0.0001). It was considered to be more relaxing (38 % vs. 8 %), quieter (34 % vs. 8 %), and more fluid (64 % vs. 8 %). Image quality, SUV and CT misalignment did not differ between the techniques. Continuous bed motion resulted in better end-plane image quality (P < 0.0001). Regardless of the technique, second examinations had significantly higher tumour lesion SUVmax values (P = 0.0002), and a higher CT misalignment score (P = 0.0017).
Conclusion
Oncological PET/CT with continuous bed motion enhances patient comfort and is associated with image quality at least comparable to that with traditional bed position-based step-and-shoot acquisition.qq
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the staff of the PET Center of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Hannover Medical School for reliable performance of the PET studies and assistance with questionnaire completion. The authors also thank the staff of the Institute of Epidemiology of Hannover Medical School for helpful review of the patient questionnaire, and the staff of the Institute of Biometry of Hannover Medical School for advice on statistical analysis.
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This study was supported by a research grant from Siemens AG to Hannover Medical School (MHH).
Conflicts of interest
F.M.B. receives research grants from Mallinckrodt Pharma, Siemens AG, GE Healthcare, and speaker honoraria from GE Healthcare and Mallinckrodt Pharma. The other authors report no conflicts of interest.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the principles of the1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Schatka, I., Weiberg, D., Reichelt, S. et al. A randomized, double-blind, crossover comparison of novel continuous bed motion versus traditional bed position whole-body PET/CT imaging. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 43, 711–717 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-015-3226-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-015-3226-z