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Review
. 2023 Feb;33(1):103-113.
doi: 10.1016/j.zemedi.2022.08.003. Epub 2022 Sep 24.

EANM guidelines for PET-CT and PET-MR routine quality control

Affiliations
Review

EANM guidelines for PET-CT and PET-MR routine quality control

Michel Koole et al. Z Med Phys. 2023 Feb.

Abstract

We present guidelines by the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) for routine quality control (QC) of PET-CT and PET-MR systems. These guidelines are partially based on the current EANM guidelines for routine quality control of Nuclear Medicine instrumentation but focus more on the inherent multimodal aspect of the current, state-of-the-art PET-CT and PET-MR scanners. We briefly discuss the regulatory context put forward by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and European Commission (EC) and consider relevant guidelines and recommendations by other societies and professional organizations. As such, a comprehensive overview of recommended quality control procedures is provided to ensure the optimal operational status of a PET system, integrated with either a CT or MR system. In doing so, we also discuss the rationale of the different tests, advice on the frequency of each test and present the relevant MR and CT tests for an integrated system. In addition, we recommend a scheme of preventive actions to avoid QC tests from drifting out of the predefined range of acceptable performance values such that an optimal performance of the PET system is maintained for routine clinical use.

Keywords: Guidelines; PET-CT; PET-MR; Quality control.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Visual assessment of a circular region for in-plane SUV statistics of a cylindrical phantom with uniform activity distribution together with the in-plane SUV compared to the overall average SUV ± 10%.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Analysis of a uniform cylindrical water phantom as part of a daily CT QC procedure.

References

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    1. Directorate-General for Energy (European Commission): RADIATION PROTECTION N° 162: Criteria for acceptability of medical radiological equipment used in diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy; 2013.
    1. International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA Health Human Series No. 1: Quality Assurance for PET and PET/CT Systems. Vienna, Austria; 2009.
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    1. Lopez B.P., Jordan D.W., Kemp B.J., Kinahan P.E., Schmidtlein C.R., Mawlawi O.R. PET/CT acceptance testing and quality assurance: Executive summary of AAPM Task Group 126 Report. Med Phys. 2021 Feb;48(2):e31–e35. - PubMed

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