CTSC:CHBresources:nuclear medicine

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The Division of Nuclear Medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston has a full service radiopharmacy, 4 routine imaging rooms, a PET Suite, one portable imaging camera, and a stationary planar imaging system in the Division of Urodynamics.

Imaging Equipment

• 2 Siemens Single Head E.CAM Imaging Systems both with a SIEMENS E.SOFT A/P Workstation
• 3 Siemens Dual Head E.CAM SPECT Imaging Systems all three with Siemens E.Soft A/P Workstations
• 1 DigiRAD Single Head Portable Imaging System

Processing Workstations

• Siemens ICON P
• Siemens Esoft Turbo P
• Hermes Windows Client
• Mirada
• GE Xeleris
• GE Advantage

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) The Division of Nuclear Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston has a GE Advance NXi PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanner dedicated for pediatric use, providing resolution of structures 8-10 mm in size. Imaging is routinely performed with 18F and 18F-FDG; other positron-emitting radionuclides such as 11C and 64Cu can be imaged as they become available. Post-processing capabilities include standard multiplanar reconstruction techniques, as well as two Hermes workstations. The latter is used to facilitate image fusion of PET imaging studies to cross-sectional imaging performed by either CT or MRI, to allow correlation of functional and anatomic data. In addition to conventional planar imaging, there are four SPECT cameras available for imaging with traditional gamma-emitting agents such as 123I and 99mTc.

The PET facility at Children’s Hospital Boston is located within the Division of Nuclear Medicine of the Department of Radiology. The PET facility is adjacent to the radiopharmacy and is equipped with two preparatory rooms for maintaining the patient during the radiopharmaceutical uptake phase as well as a dedicated bathroom and changing room specifically designed for the efficient handling of patients for PET imaging. The General Electric Advance NX PET scanner at Children’s Hospital Boston is among the highest resolution scanners available providing resolution of structures 8-10 mm in size. Imaging is routinely performed with 18F and 18F-FDG. It consists 12,096 small (4x8mm) bismuth germanate (BGO) scintillating detectors that can simultaneously image 35 tomographic slices over a 15.4 cm axial field of view. The spatial resolution of the Advance NXi is 4.9 mm. The sensitivity of the scanner is 200 and 1000 thousand counts per second per mCi per mL for 2D and 3D PET mode, respectively. Activity concentrations up to 220 kBq/mL (6 μCi/mL) can be suitably measured. Measured attenuation correction necessary for accurate quantitation is provided with the use of two rotating sources of 68Ge/68Ga. The PET data is reconstructed using the ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM) iterative algorithm in a manner suitable for further advanced image processing including kinetic modeling, display using standard uptake values (SUV) and image registration with either MR or CT images. The PET image data can also be made readily available to other analysis workstations using either the interfile or DICOM image format. Post-processing capabilities include standard multiplanar reconstruction techniques, as well as two Hermes workstations. The latter is used to facilitate image fusion of PET imaging studies to cross-sectional imaging performed by either CT or MRI, to allow correlation of functional and anatomic data in addition to conventional planar imaging.