Advanced PET/CT Fusion Workstation for Cancer Management

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cancer management using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is rapidly expanding its role in clinical practice. The high sensitivity of PET to locate cancer can be confounded by the minimal anatomical information it provides. Additional anatomical information would greatly benefit diagnosis, staging, therapy planning and treatment monitoring. Computed tomography (CT) provides detailed anatomical information but is less sensitive towards cancer localization than PET. Combining PET and CT images would enable accurate localization of the functional information with respect to detailed patient anatomy. In clinical settings, most PET/CT image fusion is currently performed using primitive software solutions or using the new class of combined PET/CT scanners. A more general solution to this problem could be used with the existing large installed base of individual PET and CT scanners, which will continue to expand. Furthermore, making this available on the physicians' desktop computer (independent of the scanner manufacturer) along with improved display options will greatly increase the clinical efficacy of fusion technology. The broad, long-term goal of this research and development effort is to develop and validate an advanced PET/CT fusion workstation for analyzing PET/CT whole-body images. The key to the success of the proposed work will be (1) designing a solution that is robust, fast and requires minimum user interactions, and (2) provides a variety of options for displaying and analyzing the fused data. Phase I work will focus on algorithm development and initial prototyping of a fusion display. In Phase II we will validate the quality of our system using PET/CT lung data sets of cancer patients. Further algorithmic and PET/CT fusion display enhancements will also be conducted in Phase II.