The utility of whole-body diffusion-weighted MRI for delineating regions of interest in PET

In this technological report, we investigate the utility of whole-body diffusion-weighted MRI (WBDWI) as a prior for defining regions of interest (ROI) in PET data. Due to its comparatively high resolution and excellent lesion-to-background ratio, semi-automatic segmentation is possible in WBDWI. Following rigid registration of PET to WBDWI, a simple, fast and automatic algorithm can be used to define ROIs in PET data. This approach is applied to a test cohort of patients diagnosed with lymphoma who underwent both 18FDG-PET/CT and WBDWI studies to demonstrate its potential application.