Performance characteristic evaluation of a bismuth germanate-based high-sensitivity 5-ring discovery image quality positron emission tomography/computed tomography system as per National Electrical Manufacturers Association NU 2-2012

Abstract

National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) provides guidelines to assess the performance of Positron Emission Tomography (PET). A PET/CT scanner, Discovery IQ, GE Medical systems, Milwaukee, USA was installed in our department which has high a sensitivity PET component. We have performed the NEMA NU-2 2012 quality control tests to evaluate this system on site before clinical use. Performance measurements of the PET scanner were made using the NEMA NU2-2012 procedures for spatial resolution, scatter fraction, sensitivity, count rate loss and random coincidence estimation, Noise Equivalent Count Rate (NECR) and image quality. As per NU2 2012, spatial resolution was measured at 1 cm, 10 cm and 20 cm vertically from the centre and at each of these points resolution was measured at tangential, radial and axial directions. Sensitivity was measured at centre and 10 cm off center vertically from the center. The system sensitivity is reported as an average of the two measured values. Scatter fraction and NECR measurements, Image quality test was also performed. The tangential, radial and axial FWHM were 4.99 mm, 4.20 mm and 4.79 mm at 1 cm off centre, 5.49 mm, 4.69 mm and 4.81 mm at 10 cm off centre and 7.99 mm, 5.07 mm and 4.95 mm at 20 cm off centre respectively. The absolute sensitivity of this scanner was found to be 20.1 cps/kBq. The scatter fraction calculated from the decay method was 37.94% and NECR was 125 kcps. The peak NECR was achieved at activity concentration of 8.7 KBq/ml and the count loss below the peak NECR was found to be 0.68%. Image quality test for, contrast recovery, background variability and lung error residual mean met all specifications. Overall PET performance of Discovery IQ whole-body scanner was satisfactory and the scanner met all the performance specifications required by NEMA 2012.

Optimization of injection dose in 18F-FDG PET/CT based on the 2020 national diagnostic reference levels for nuclear medicine in Japan

“…PET images were acquired at 2 min per bed in 3D acquisition mode, and the obtained image data were reconstructed using VUE Point HD and Q. Clear (GE Healthcare) [ 15 ].…”

“…SF is derived from both phantom studies and the actual patient’s test. The scatter fraction phantom (SF phantom ) was 0.37, based on the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) standard [ 15 ].…”

Repeatability and reproducibility study of radiomic features on a phantom and human cohort

“…The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) Image Quality (IQ)PET/CT phantom (Data Spectrum Inc., NJ, USA) was used for this study 22 . The external dimensions of the phantom are 241 mm × 305 mm × 241 mm with interior length of 180 mm and volume of 9.7L.…”

Validation of low-dose lung cancer PET-CT protocol and PET image improvement using machine learning

“…Acquisition times and/or injected activities should be proportionally adjusted to obtain the counting statistics presented in table 1 with scanners less sensitive. However, due to faster electronics and increased axial field of view, most of the modern scanners offer similar or higher performance with sensitivities ranging from 13.3 cps/kBq for the Siemens synchronous PET-MR scanner and the GE DMI PET/CT system [23], to more than 20 cps/kBq for the SIGNATM [24] and the DIQ PET/CT system [25] from General Electric. Higher sensitivities would potentially allow further reduction of the acquisition time and/or of the injected dose while preserving the image quality.…”