Principles of Simultaneous PET/MR Imaging

Abstract

Combined PET/MR imaging scanners capable of acquiring simultaneously the complementary information provided by the 2 imaging modalities are now available for human use. After addressing the hardware challenges for integrating the 2 imaging modalities, most of the efforts in the field have focused on developing MR-based attenuation correction methods for neurologic and whole-body applications, implementing approaches for improving one modality by using the data provided by the other and exploring research and clinical applications that could benefit from the synergistic use of the multimodal data.

Keywords: Integrated hardware; MR imaging; MR-Based attenuation correction; Multimodal imaging; PET; PET/MR imaging; Simultaneous imaging; Time-of-flight PET.