Standard PET imaging protocols and phantom test procedures and criteria: executive summary

The standard protocols described in this document cover subject preparation, injection activity, accumulation time, subject positioning, scan time and the criteria for determination of reconstruction parameters for each PET camera based on phantom data. The idea is to standardize the methods and conditions that would affect the PET image qualitatively or quantitatively. However, the image quality and quantitative capability depend on the camera model even with the same injection activity and scan time and further depend on the reconstruction parameters even for the identical data acquired in a PET scan on a particular subject. Therefore, Japanese Society of Nuclear Medicine (JSNM) provides standard procedures for a number of specific PET scans and methods of evaluating absolute quantitation, resolution, recovery coefficient, contrast, uniformity, image noise, etc., using appropriate phantoms, together with the phantom test criteria that should be satisfied, based on which reconstruction parameters and, if necessary, scan time could be determined for each PET camera for the purpose of harmonization among different camera models. This document presents the executive summary of the standard protocols and the procedures and criteria of the phantom test. At this moment, JSNM has issued standard PET imaging protocol and phantom test criteria for the following PET scans.