Abstract #0673

MR-Based Whole-Body PET Attenuation Correction in Hybrid PET/MRI: A Computationally Inexpensive Algorithm for T1, T2, and Proton Density Weighted Images

Harry Robert Marshall^1,2, Robert Z. Stodilka,¹², Benoit Lewden², Jean Theberge^1,2, Eric Sabondjian,¹², Alexandre G. Legros², Andrea J. Mitchell², Lela Deans², Jane M. Sykes², R Terry Thompson,¹², Frank S. Prato^1,2

¹Medical Biophysics, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; ²Imaging, Lawson Health Research Institute, London, ON, Canada

Whole-body attenuation correction of PET images remains a crucial unsolved problem in hybrid PET/MRI. We present an algorithm capable of taking any of T1, T2, or proton density weighted MRI images as input and producing a PET attenuation map of comparable quality to a gold standard CT-derived attenuation map. The idea is that no special MRI sequences need to be acquired solely for the purposes of attenuation correction. The algorithm was tested on nine low resolution canine images with significant motion artefacts to ensure robustness.