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An overview of PET/MR, focused on clinical applications

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Abstract

Hybrid PET/MR scanners are innovative imaging devices that simultaneously or sequentially acquire and fuse anatomical and functional data from magnetic resonance (MR) with metabolic information from positron emission tomography (PET) (Delso et al. in J Nucl Med 52:1914–1922, 2011; Zaidi et al. in Phys Med Biol 56:3091–3106, 2011). Hybrid PET/MR scanners have the potential to greatly impact not only on medical research but also, and more importantly, on patient management. Although their clinical applications are still under investigation, the increased worldwide availability of PET/MR scanners, and the growing published literature are important determinants in their rising utilization for primarily clinical applications. In this manuscript, we provide a summary of the physical features of PET/MR, including its limitations, which are most relevant to clinical PET/MR implementation and to interpretation. Thereafter, we discuss the most important current and emergent clinical applications of such hybrid technology in the abdomen and pelvis, both in the field of oncologic and non-oncologic imaging, and we provide, when possible, a comparison with clinically consolidated imaging techniques, like for example PET/CT.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 49 13th St, Charlestown, MA, 02129, USA

    Onofrio Antonio Catalano, Ciprian Catana, Umar Mahmood & Bruce Robert Rosen

  2. Abdominal Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 55 Fruit St, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Onofrio Antonio Catalano, Dushyant Vasudeo Sahani, Michael Stanley Gee & Debra Gervais

  3. Department of Radiology, Abdominal Imaging, University of Michigan Health System, 1550E Medical Center Dr, SPC5030, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    William Roger Masch

  4. Institute of Precision Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 55 Fruit St, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Umar Mahmood

  5. Martinos Center for Pediatric Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 55 Fruit St, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Michael Stanley Gee

  6. Institute of Nuclear Medicine, University College Hospital, 235 Euston Rd, Fitzrovia, London, NW1 2BU, UK

    Leon Menezes

  7. University of Naples “Parthenope”, Via Medina 40, 80133, Naples, Italy

    Andrea Soricelli

  8. Medicina Nucleare, Fondazione SDN, Via Gianturco 113, Naples, 80113, Italy

    Marco Salvatore

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  1. Onofrio Antonio Catalano
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Correspondence to Onofrio Antonio Catalano.

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This article, being a review manuscript, does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors. All these studies had been granted approval by the Ethical Commission. No new patients have been enrolled neither new research studies have been performed to be used for the submitted review paper.

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Catalano, O.A., Masch, W.R., Catana, C. et al. An overview of PET/MR, focused on clinical applications. Abdom Radiol 42, 631–644 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00261-016-0894-5

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