Clinical Experience in Body MR-PET

Initiated by the success story of hybrid imaging with the combination of positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) in PET/CT, integrated whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) / magnetic resonance (MR) scanners have recently been introduced and potentially offer new possibilities in hybrid imaging especially of oncologic patients. Such an integrated MR/PET system comes with diagnostic advantages in cases where MR exceeds the performance of CT (ie, increased soft tissue contrast and reduced radiation dose) with clinical potential in oncology, neurology, cardiology as well as monitoring of early therapeutic success. Simultaneous measurement of PET and MR datasets enables acquisition of a variety of imaging parameters during a single examination including anatomical as well as functional information, such as perfusion, diffusion and metabolism. Numerous studies have shown that the combination of these parameters can improve the diagnostic accuracy for many applications.