Cardiac and Vascular PET-MRI: our initial experience

In 2011, first biograph mMR (PET-MRI) system (Siemens, Malvern, PA) in north American was installed in our institute (Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology). This is the first commercial medical system in the world that can simultaneously acquire MR and PET data across the whole body, with the MR component capable not only of attenuation correction, but of providing a full diagnostic examination. For the last several years, we have explored this system for both clinical cardiac applications and basic science research in cardiovascular field. The combination of PET-MRI data acquisition allows perfect co-registration and shortens cardiac imaging time for the diagnosis of patients with coronary artery diseases, but challenge remains for motion correction and artifacts reduction. Amid gradually increased interests to use this system for various clinical diagnosis, this presentation will highlight some of our own experience in cardiac and vascular imaging with this PET-MRI system.