Impact of <scp>PET</scp>/<scp>CT</scp> system, reconstruction protocol, data analysis method, and repositioning on <scp>PET</scp>/<scp>CT</scp> precision: An experimental evaluation using an oncology and brain phantom

Abstract

The precision of quantitative PET metrics depends on the combination of reconstruction protocol, data analysis methods and scan duration (scan statistics). Moreover, precision was also affected by phantom repositioning but its impact depended on the data analysis method in combination with the reconstructed voxel size (tissue fraction effect). This study suggests that for oncological PET studies the use of SUV_peak may be preferred over SUV_max because SUV_peak is less sensitive to patient repositioning/tumor sampling.