MR-Based Attenuation Correction of Local Radiofrequency Surface Coils in PET/MR Hybrid Imaging

Daniel H. Paulus¹, Harald Braun¹, Bassim Aklan¹, Harald H. Quick¹

In simultaneous PET/MR imaging, local receiving RF coils are positioned in the FOV of the PET detectors and attenuate the PET signal. Flexible RF surface coils vary in position and geometry and are thus omitted in PET attenuation correction (AC). In a phantom experiment and a patient scan, local deviations of up to 15% in the PET emission images were observed, when the coil is omitted in PET AC. It is demonstrated that with CT-based AC of the RF coil, where markers were used for image registration of MR and CT, the PET signal attenuation could mostly be corrected.