Image artifacts from MR-based attenuation correction in clinical, whole-body PET/MRI

• DOI: 10.1007/s10334-012-0345-4
• Publication Date: 2012-09-20T14:58:59Z
• Authors: Sune H. Keller; Søren Holm; Adam E. Hansen; Bernhard Sattler; Flemming Andersen; Thomas L. Klausen; Liselotte Højgaard; Andreas Kjær; Thomas Beyer
• Keywords: Correction for attenuation; Whole body imaging

Integrated whole-body PET/MRI tomographs have become available. PET/MR imaging has the potential to supplement, or even replace combined PET/CT imaging in selected clinical indications. However, this is true only if methodological pitfalls and image artifacts arising from novel MR-based attenuation correction (MR-AC) are fully understood.Here we present PET/MR image artifacts following routine MR-AC, as most frequently observed in clinical operations of an integrated whole-body PET/MRI system.A clinical adoption of integrated PET/MRI should entail the joint image display and interpretation of MR data, MR-based attenuation maps and uncorrected plus attenuation-corrected PET images in order to recognize potential pitfalls from MR-AC and to ensure clinically accurate image interpretation.