A multifractal approach to space-filling recovery for PET quantification

Journal Article · Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Medical Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1118/1.4898122· OSTI ID:22318086

Willaime, Julien M. Y.,; Aboagye, Eric O. ^[1]; Tsoumpas, Charalampos ^[2]; Turkheimer, Federico E. ^[3]

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1. Comprehensive Cancer Imaging Centre, Imperial College London, Hammersmith Hospital, London W12 0NN (United Kingdom)
2. Division of Medical Physics, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT (United Kingdom)
3. Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London SE5 8AF (United Kingdom)

Purpose: A new image-based methodology is developed for estimating the apparent space-filling properties of an object of interest in PET imaging without need for a robust segmentation step and used to recover accurate estimates of total lesion activity (TLA). Methods: A multifractal approach and the fractal dimension are proposed to recover the apparent space-filling index of a lesion (tumor volume, TV) embedded in nonzero background. A practical implementation is proposed, and the index is subsequently used with mean standardized uptake value (SUV {sub mean}) to correct TLA estimates obtained from approximate lesion contours. The methodology is illustrated on fractal and synthetic objects contaminated by partial volume effects (PVEs), validated on realistic {sup 18}F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET simulations and tested for its robustness using a clinical {sup 18}F-fluorothymidine PET test–retest dataset. Results: TLA estimates were stable for a range of resolutions typical in PET oncology (4–6 mm). By contrast, the space-filling index and intensity estimates were resolution dependent. TLA was generally recovered within 15% of ground truth on postfiltered PET images affected by PVEs. Volumes were recovered within 15% variability in the repeatability study. Results indicated that TLA is a more robust index than other traditional metrics such as SUV {sub mean} or TV measurements across imaging protocols. Conclusions: The fractal procedure reported here is proposed as a simple and effective computational alternative to existing methodologies which require the incorporation of image preprocessing steps (i.e., partial volume correction and automatic segmentation) prior to quantification.

• OSTI ID: 22318086
• Journal Information: Medical Physics, Vol. 41, Issue 11; Other Information: (c) 2014 American Association of Physicists in Medicine; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-2405
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
APPROXIMATIONS
BIOLOGICAL RECOVERY
CORRECTIONS
DATA
DATASETS
ENERGY RECOVERY
ENHANCED RECOVERY
FLUORINE 18
FLUORODEOXYGLUCOSE
FRACTALS
GROUND TRUTH MEASUREMENTS
IMAGES
INDEXES
MATERIALS RECOVERY
METRICS
NEOPLASMS
PRIMARY RECOVERY
RESOLUTION
SEED RECOVERY
SIMULATION
SPACE
TRITIUM RECOVERY
UPTAKE