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Andres Kaalep, Marc Huisman, Terez Sera, Danielle Vugts, Ronald Boellaard, on behalf of EARL, EATRIS and the TRISTAN Consortium

EJNMMI Physics 2018 (5):26 doi: 10.1186/s40658-018-0226-7.

Purpose

The aim of this study was to investigate the variability in quantitative performance and feasibility of quantitative harmonisation in ⁸⁹Zr PET/CT imaging.

Methods

Eight EANM EARL-accredited (Kaalep A et al., Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 45:412-22, 2018) PET/CT systems were investigated using phantom acquisitions of uniform and NEMA NU2-2007 body phantoms. The phantoms were filled according to EANM EARL guidelines for ¹⁸F-FDG, but ¹⁸F-FDG solution was replaced by a ⁸⁹Zr calibration mixture. For each system, standard uptake value (SUV) accuracy and recovery coefficients (RC) using SUVmean, SUVmax and SUVpeak metrics were determined.

Results

All eight investigated systems demonstrated similarly shaped RC curves, and five of them exhibited closely aligning recoveries when SUV bias correction was applied. From the evaluated metrics, SUVpeak was found to be least sensitive to noise and reconstruction differences among different systems.

Conclusions

Harmonisation of PET/CT scanners for quantitative ⁸⁹Zr studies is feasible when proper scanner-dose calibrator cross-calibration and harmonised image reconstruction procedures are followed. An accreditation programme for PET/CT scanners would facilitate multicentre ⁸⁹Zr quantitative studies.