PhD project: Can the latest positron emission tomography scanners use tracer kinetics to differentiate liver tumours? a simulation study.

Project description

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a medical imaging technique for observing physiological processes within the body. It is currently undergoing a revolution due to the development of combined PET/MRI scanners and total-body PET scanners with unprecedented sensitivity.  

For two decades it has been know that the PET tracer 11C-acetate was a valuable way to identify liver lesions. Subsequently, it was demonstrated that kinetic studies (showing changes across several tens of minutes) could be used to differentiate tumours from benign lesions. This latter approach requires knowledge of the variation through time of the tracer concentration in the portal vein. At the time, this was practically impossible to obtain. 

This PhD will use computer simulation techniques to investigate whether this problem is now soluble by either using the complementary soft tissue information from MRI or via the enhanced spatial resolution of a total-body PET scanner. There will also be the opportunity to compare the single-tracer approach with the performance of PET scans carried out using both 11C-acetate and 18F-FDG tracers together. 

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