Advances in PET/CT Technology: An Update

This article reviews the current evolution and future directions in PET/CT technology focusing on three areas: time of flight, image reconstruction, and data-driven gating. Image reconstruction is considered with advances in point spread function modelling, Bayesian penalised likelihood reconstruction, and artificial intelligence approaches. Data-driven gating is examined with reference to respiratory motion, cardiac motion, and head motion. For each of these technological advancements, theory will be briefly discussed, benefits of their use in routine practice will be detailed and potential future developments will be discussed. Representative clinical cases will be presented, demonstrating the huge opportunities given to the PET community by hardware and software advances in PET technology when it comes to lesion detection, disease characterization, accurate quantitation and quicker scans. Through this review, hospitals are encouraged to embrace, evaluate and appropriately implement the wide range of new PET technologies that are available now or in the near future, for the improvement of patient care. (c) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This article reviews the current evolution and future directions in PET/CT technology, focusing on time of flight, image reconstruction, and data-driven gating. Advances in point spread function modeling, Bayesian penalised likelihood reconstruction, and artificial intelligence approaches in image reconstruction are discussed. Data-driven gating is examined in relation to respiratory motion, cardiac motion, and head motion. The benefits of these technological advancements in routine practice and potential future developments are detailed. Clinical cases are presented to demonstrate the opportunities provided by PET technology for lesion detection, disease characterization, accurate quantification, and faster scans. Hospitals are encouraged to adopt and evaluate new PET technologies for the improvement of patient care.