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Simulations of Virtual PET/CT 3-D Bronchoscopy Imaging Using a Physical Porcine Lung–Heart Phantom

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Abstract

Purpose

We present a systematic approach for studying positron emission tomography–computed tomography (PET/CT) 3-D virtual fly-through endoscopy and for assessing the accuracy of this technology for visualizing and detecting endobronchial lesions as a function of focal lesion morphology and activity.

Procedures

Capsules designed to simulate endobronchial lesions were filled with activity and introduced into a porcine lung–heart phantom. PET/CT images were acquired, reconstructed, and volume rendered as 3-D fly-through and fly-around visualizations. Anatomical positioning of lesions seen on the 3-D-volume-rendered PET/CT images was compared to the actual position of the capsules.

Results

Lesion size was observed to be highly sensitive to PET threshold parameter settings and careful opacity and color transfer function parameter assignment.

Conclusion

We have demonstrated a phantom model for studies of PET/CT 3-D virtual fly-through bronchoscopy and have applied this model for understanding the effect of PET thresholding on the visualization and detection of lesions.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to the following individuals from Stanford University: Laura Pierce and Mark Sofilos for helping with visualization software, Christine Fujii and Luan Nguyen help with using the PET/CT scanner, Amelie Lutz and Juergen Willmann for help with making CT measurements of capsule dimensions, and Jarrett Rosenberg for assistance with statistics. This work is supported in part by NCI ICMIC P50 CA114747 (SSG) and the Canary Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, The James H. Clark Center, 318 Campus Drive, E150, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    David Yerushalmi, Norbert J. Pelc & Sanjiv S. Gambhir

  2. Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    David Yerushalmi, Andrew Quon, Rebecca Fahrig, Norbert J. Pelc & Sanjiv S. Gambhir

  3. Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    James I. Fann

  4. Division of Nuclear Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Andrew Quon

  5. Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS), Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    David Yerushalmi & Sanjiv S. Gambhir

  6. Bio-X Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    David Yerushalmi & Sanjiv S. Gambhir

  7. Imaging Technologies Lab, John F. Welch Technology Center, GE Global Research, Bangalore, India

    Rakesh Mullick

  8. Section of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Palo Alto Veterans Affairs, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    James I. Fann

Authors
  1. David Yerushalmi
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  2. Rakesh Mullick
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  3. Andrew Quon
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  4. Rebecca Fahrig
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  5. Norbert J. Pelc
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  6. James I. Fann
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  7. Sanjiv S. Gambhir
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sanjiv S. Gambhir.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Video 1a

PET-CT 3D fly-around rendering for study 1. Rendering were created using GE Volume Viewer software on the advanced workstation. Background PET activity and low density structures in CT data were first thresholded. PET and CT axial images were independently volume-rendered. CT information was colored in grayscale, whereas PET activity was colored in red. The volume-rendered images were fused to create a single fusion 3D rendering. CT opacity was set to <20 HU. Visualization of images from study 1 contains three lesions, one in the trachea and two in the right main stem bronchus. (A) (MOV 230 KB)

Supplementary Video 1b

PET-CT fly-around rendering for study 2 containing two lesions, one at the carina and one in the right main stem bronchus. (MOV 229 KB)

Supplementary Video 2

PET-CT 3D Virtual fly-through bronchoscopy movie. PET and CT images were fused and rendered based on the data processing scheme detailed in Fig. 2. PET lesions are rendered in white and CT anatomical information delineating the lumen wall is rendered in orange. (MOV 1.27 KB)

Supplementary Video 3a

Raw axial PET-CT image data. These images show axial PET-CT data where CT is represented in grayscale and PET radiotracer activity is superimposed in color. These axial images were used as the basis for generating fly-around and fly-through renderings. Two datasets were acquired including study 1 (A) and study 2 (B). (A) (MOV 417 KB)

Supplementary Video 3b

(MOV 786 KB)

Supplementary Video 4a

(MOV 599 KB)

Supplementary Video 4b

(MOV 160 KB)

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Yerushalmi, D., Mullick, R., Quon, A. et al. Simulations of Virtual PET/CT 3-D Bronchoscopy Imaging Using a Physical Porcine Lung–Heart Phantom. Mol Imaging Biol 11, 275–282 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11307-009-0201-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11307-009-0201-8

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