Automated Method for Generation of Input Function in PET Studies using MVW-PC Images

Abstract: Modeling is an approach for extracting quantitative values from PET. The signal from a reference region or from blood samples is used as reference. Since blood sampling is risky, this report presents an automated method based on MVW-PCA for using blood data from the images. The study was performed on clinical PET data from several human brains using the tracer PIB. Two veins were found in a MVW-PC and an average of the TACs from the relevant locations was formed. Finally, a correcting function was calculated. The curves generated from the image data were very similar to the curves generated from blood samples, with the largest errors in the beginning of the scan. The used method shows potential for generating very good results if worked onmore. One of the strengths of the approach is that it is not limited to a specific tracer or time protocol, since the MVW-PC will be chosen depending on the weights for the first 60 seconds.