Quantitative Analysis in Multimodality Imaging: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

This talk reflects the tremendous ongoing interest in molecular and dual-modality imaging (PET/CT, SPECT/CT and PET/MR) as both clinical and research imaging modalities in the past decade. An overview of molecular multi-modality medical imaging instrumentation as well as simulation, reconstruction, quantification, and related image processing issues with special emphasis on quantitative analysis of nuclear medical images are presented. This tutorial aims to bring the biomedical image processing community a review on the state-of-the-art algorithms used and under development for accurate quantitative analysis in multimodality and multi-parametric molecular imaging and their validation mainly from the developer’s perspective with emphasis on image reconstruction and analysis techniques. It will inform the audience about a series of advanced development recently carried out at the PET instrumentation & Neuroimaging Lab of Geneva University Hospital and other active research groups. Current and prospective future applications of quantitative molecular imaging also are addressed, especially its use prior to therapy for dose distribution modeling and optimization of treatment volumes in external radiation therapy and patient-specific 3D dosimetry in targeted therapy toward the concept of image-guided radiation therapy.