The Physical Principles of Positron Emission Tomography in the Context of Hybrid PET/MRI

Harald Braun¹, Susanne Ziegler¹, Harald H. Quick¹

Simultaneous whole-body hybrid PET/MR imaging has become clinical reality. As PET and MRI have traditionally been separate fields, physicians and scientists usually specialized in either method. With regards to PET/MR hybrid imaging, it seems of mutual scientific benefit to bring those two fields closer together. This presentation introduces the basics and physical principles of PET to a broad audience of MRI specialists. This includes different tracers and isotopes used in PET, physical processes involved in signal generation, some basics about PET instrumentation in the context of combined PET/MR systems and the necessary post processing and reconstruction steps for PET data.