Andre Jan Willem van der Kouwe1,2, Ciprian Catana1,2, Thomas Benner1,2, Christian J. Michel3, Michael Hamm4, Sonia Nielles-Vallespin5, Stephan Kannengiesser5, Matthias Fenchel5, Bruce R. Rosen1,2, A. Gregory Sorensen1,2
1Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; 2Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Brookline, MA, USA; 3Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc., Knoxville, TN, USA; 4Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc., Charlestown, MA, USA; 5Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany
Attenuation correction (AC) is essential for accurate reconstruction of PET images. With combined MR-PET scanners such as the prototype Siemens BrainPET/3T TIM Trio combination, CT and transmission source data are unavailable for AC purposes. We demonstrate that with this head imaging system, the skull and the location of the MR RF coil can be detected with radially encoded ultrashort TE imaging and that inclusion of the RF coil in the AC map is critical for precise PET image reconstruction.