Enhancing the Diagnostic Accuracy of Amyloid PET: The Impact of MR-Guided PET Reconstruction

Abstract

18F-Florbetaben (FBB) uptake in the supratentorial cortex is indicative of amyloid positivity. Due to positron emission tomography (PET)’s low spatial resolution, image noise, and spill-over of signal from adjacent white-matter into gray-matter, trained readers may provide inconsistent reads and quantitative calculations like centiloids (CLs) are also affected. A set of 264 FBB (amyloid) PET/MRI exams were reconstructed using conventional ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM) method and MR-guided block sequential regularized expectation maximization (MRgBSREM) method. Three trained readers evaluated the images from these 264 patients, which were reconstructed using the OSEM method. Fifty-three exams were rated inconsistently and were mixed with another 53 exams which were rated consistently. These 106 subjects were then rated by our readers using the MRgBSREM PET reconstruction method. CLs were measured using both reconstruction methods. There is significant correlation between CL measured by OSEM and MRgBSREM methods with R $2 = 0.99$ . The number of inconsistent exams dropped by 64% using MRgBSREM method as compared with OSEM method. Using Fleiss-Kappa statistical test, the agreement between readers was raised from “Fair” to “Significant” in the 106-subjects subset. PET reconstruction with MR priors can significantly improve the consistency of ratings among trained readers. Given the prevalence of inconsistent ratings in amyloid PET, methods that enhance the ability to distinguish intermediate amyloid levels could be valuable for the widespread adoption of this modality.