Noninvasive high-resolution detection of the arterial and venous input function through a PET wrist scanner

In order to assess the kinetics of radiotracer accumulation in tissue, the amount of radioactivity in the blood must be quantitatively measured as an input function to the kinetic model. Due to safety and comfort issues with invasive determination of the input function, a non-invasive method for arterial measurement of blood radioactivity is investigated using a wrist scanner. A prototype consisting of two detector pairs of LSO and APD detector arrays is used to obtain planar images of an anatomically correct wrist phantom. The spatial resolution and sensitivity of the prototype is determined. The results showed the detector was able to discriminate the arterial and venous flows from each other when using planar coincidence images.