Abstract #2813

Towards Simultaneous PET/MR Breast Imaging: Systematic Evaluation and Integration of an RF Breast Coil

Bassim Aklan¹, Daniel H. Paulus¹, David Fual², Christian Geppert³, Eric E. Sigmund⁴, Amy Melsaether⁵, Evelyn Wenkel⁶, Harald Braun¹, Susanne Ziegler¹, Harald H. Quick¹

¹Institute of Medical Physics, University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, Erlangen, Germany; ²Siemens Medical Solutions, New York, , NY, United States; ³Siemens Medical Systems, New York,, NY, United States; ⁴Department of Radiology for Biomedical Imaging NY Langone Medical Center, New York,, NY, United States; ⁵Breast Imaging Section, Department of Radiology Medical Center, New York,, NY, United States; ⁶Institute of Radiology, University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany

Simultaneous PET/MR breast imaging requires the RF breast coil necessary for MR data acquisition to be located in the FoV of the PET detector thus attenuating PET signals and reducing PET quantification accuracy. Integration of a commercial 4-channel RF breast coil on an integrated PET/MR hybrid system resulted in local PET signal attenuation of 4-16% in systematic phantom experiments. Application and registration of a CT-based attenuation map of this coil resulted in successful attenuation correction (AC). First PET/MR studies in breast cancer patients demonstrate successful integration of the RF breast coil into the new application of PET/MR breast imaging.