English summary: COMPARISON OF THE IMAGING QUALITY OF PET GAMMA CAMERA AND DEDICATED PET CAMERA IN A SMALL PATIENT GROUP

Background

Clinical positron emission tomography (PET) imaging has been shown to be useful especially in oncology. In Finland, imaging with dedicated PET cameras is possible only at the Turku PET centre. In addition, there is a mobile PET unit available. PET imaging can also be performed by using gamma cameras equipped with a coincidence unit (gamma PET). Gamma PET cameras are in use in several Finnish hospitals. The aim of the present study was to compare the performance of gamma PET camera to a dedicated PET camera in a clinical setting.

Methods

A total of 12 patients were scanned with both PET and gamma PET cameras. In addition, an anatomical model (phantom) was scanned using both modalities.

Results

When scanning the phantom, the PET camera was clearly more sensitive than the gamma PET camera. In the small patient group, the clinical findings were the same, which is most probably explained by patient selection.

Conclusions

We assume that in the future, with the number of PET studies increasing, dedicated PET cameras, being more sensitive and faster, will replace gamma PET cameras in clinical PET imaging.