Full member of GSISH

Contact Details

Department of Nuclear Medicine
Klinikum Rechts der Isar
TU München
Ismaninger Str. 22
81675 München
Germany

Phone: +49 (0)89.4140.4572

E-Mail: sebastian.fuerst@ph.tum.de

Project Details

Project:
Reducing Motion and Attenuation Artefacts in Hybrid MR-PET Imaging

Supervisors:
Prof. Dr. Sibylle Ziegler
Prof. Dr. Axel Haase

Start of PhD-work at GSISH:
September 2010

Project Description:
Similar to the already commercially available and for both the patient and the physician highly advantageous PET/CT scanners (positron emission tomography/computed tomography), MR-PET (magnetic resonance/positron emission tomography) is a multimodal medical imaging concept yielding functional information embedded in an anatomical view of the human body.
Although the first studies give a positive outlook for the future, there is still a number of open issues in the context of combining MR and PET. Since a PET image requires several minutes to be acquired, it is the sum of information of several breathing and heart cycles. This motion of the inner structures in addition to external patient motion leads to image artefacts, making tumour volume definition as well as tracer uptake quantification of PET data inaccurate. Such artefacts could be corrected through MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) motion registration and the use of this information as an input for the PET reconstruction.
Although the PET detector ring will be integrated within the MR component, radiofrequency coils have to be placed in the field of view of the PET detector ring. These coils are devices that facilitate a higher MR image quality, but in this case lead to a lower PET image quality due to their position and the resulting attenuation of the gamma rays. The exact effects that the coils have on the PET component need to be studied and possible correction techniques be developed.

The above mentioned research and development on both topics will be done within the scope of this project.

Publications:

Journal Articles

Hitz S, Habekost C, Fürst S, Delso G, Förster S, Ziegler SI, Nekolla SG, Souvatzoglou M, Beer AJ, Grimmer T, Eiber M, Schwaiger M, Drzezga A.
Systematic Comparison of the Performance of Integrated Whole-Body PET/MR Imaging to Conventional PET/CT for 18F-FDG Brain Imaging in Patients Examined for Suspected Dementia. J Nucl Med. 2014;55:923–931.

Eiber M, Takei T, Souvatzoglou M, Mayerhoefer ME, Fürst S, Gaertner FC, Loeffelbein DJ, Rummeny EJ, Ziegler SI, Schwaiger M, Beer AJ.
Performance of Whole-Body Integrated 18F-FDG PET/MR in Comparison to PET/CT for Evaluation of Malignant Bone Lesions. J Nucl Med. 2014;55:191–197.

Fürst S, Souvatzoglou M, Martínez-Möller A, Schwaiger M, Nekolla SG, Ziegler SI.
Impact of flexible body surface coil and patient table on PET quantification and image quality in integrated PET/MR. Nuklearmedizin Nuclear medicine. 2014;53:79–87.

Souvatzoglou M, Eiber M, Takei T, Fürst S, Maurer T, Gaertner F, Geinitz H, Drzezga A, Ziegler SI, Nekolla SG, Rummeny EJ, Schwaiger M, Beer AJ.
Comparison of integrated whole-body [11C]choline PET/MR with PET/CT in patients with prostate cancer. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imag. 2013;40:1486–1499.

Delso* G, Fürst* S, Jakoby BW, Ladebeck R, Ganter C, Nekolla SG, Schwaiger M, Ziegler SI. Performance Measurements of the Siemens mMR Integrated Whole-Body PET/MR Scanner. J. Nucl. Med. 2011;52:1914–22.

Fürst S, Pulko J, Hohberg M, Mann AB, Ziegler SI. Effects of temperature and bias voltage on the properties of a PET detector module based on the individual readout of 1 × 1 mm2 LYSO crystals by monolithic arrays of SiPMs. JINST. 2012;7:P08002.

* Contributed equally to this work.

Conference Talks

Fürst S, Grimm R, Hong I, Souvatzoglou M, Casey M, Schwaiger M, Ziegler SI, Nekolla SG.
MR- and PET-driven motion correction for integrated PET/MR abdominal/thoracic imaging. SNM Annual Meeting 2014.

Fürst S, Delso G, Martínez-Möller A, Jakoby BW, Schoenahl F, Ganter C, Nekolla SG, Ziegler SI, Rummeny E, Schwaiger M. Initial performance evaluation of the Biograph mMR. SNM Annual Meeting 2011.

Fürst S, Delso G, Jakoby BW, Ganter C, Nekolla SG, Schwaiger M, Ziegler SI. Comparative performance study of the Biograph mMR. RSNA Annual Meeting 2011.

Fürst S, Souvatzoglou M, Rischpler C, Ziegler S, Schwaiger M, Nekolla S. Effects of MR contrast agents on attenuation map generation and cardiac PET quantification in PET/MR. SNM Annual Meeting 2012.

Fürst S, Souvatzoglou M, Martínez-Möller A, Nekolla S, Schwaiger M, Ziegler S. Impact of MRI surface coils on quantification in integrated PET/MR. SNM Annual Meeting 2012.

Posters

Fürst S, Grimm R, Hong I, Souvatzoglou M, Casey M, Schwaiger M, Nekolla SG, Ziegler SI. MR- and PET-based respiratory gating for integrated PET/MR imaging. Society of Nuclear Medicine Annual Meeting Abstracts. 2014;55:2108.

Fürst S, Pulko J, Mann AB, Hohberg M, Konorov I, Paul S, Spanoudaki VC, Ziegler SI. First Studies of a Novel PET Detector Module Based on Individual Readout of 1x1 mm - LYSO Crystals by Monolithic Arrays of SiPMs. IEEE MIC 2008.

Fürst S, Dregely I, Nekolla SG, Schwaiger M, Ziegler SI. Effects of Simultaneous Operation on the Biograph mMR. ISMRM Annual Meeting 2012.