Commentary to Quantitative PET/MRI Evaluation and Application in Neurology

Abstract

Commentary to Quantitative PET/MRI Evaluation and Application in Neurology Yongxia Zhou Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, USA Introduction: With the high spatial resolution of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) particularly for the soft tissue such as in brain and nonion radiation involved, the integrative positron emission tomography (PET)/ MRI system is expected to provide almost equivalent image quality compared with PET alone or PET/CT system, and simultaneous MRI information that is not conventionally available [1]. PET-MRI opens new horizons in multi-parametric neuroimaging for clinical research that allows simultaneous imaging of multiple parametric changes such as blood flow and metabolism at the same time. While MRI could provide superior structural information, applying MRI anatomical priors to reduce the PET partial volume effect could be achieved to improve spatial resolution of PET images for clinical and research usages. Objectives: Further applications in brain tumors and cancer response monitoring have reported complementary and valid information that this relatively new modality could achieve based on newly developed techniques. Newer and better MRIbased attenuation correction (AC) such as zero TE (ZTE) for more bone-related tissue signal detection and faster reconstruction compared to UTE/Dixon has been reported [36]. Advanced MRI-based motion correction for PET image reconstruction, newer PET time of flight reconstruction and incorporation with compressed sensing techniques have offered attractive superior temporal and spatial resolutions for disease diagnosis and prevention [7-9]. We briefly review the applications of PET/MRI in neurology with two examples in Alzheimer’s disease and brain tumor cases in this commentary.