ABSTRACT BY SPONSOR: Multimodal Hybrid-imaging in translational research

Multimodality imaging with PET/CT and SPECT/CT have become common place in clinical, preclinical and basic medical research. The pivotal question however remains: Do other combinations of imaging modalities had and will have a similar impact in preclinical science and clinical medicine? Clearly Multimodal hybrid imaging becomes more and more applicable due to latest developments in PET, MRI and CT instrumentation as well as applications.

Low dose micro-CT in combination with dedicated full-body PET was used to obtain fast and absolutely quantitative in vivo data. In addition, MRI from translational up to high-field was applied either sequential or in a simultaneous approach. Analysis had been performed via ParaVision360(Bruker) using patented self-gating IntraGate as well as PolyGate analysis tools (BrukerBioSpinMRI, Ettlingen) and/or pmod(Zurich)

Multimodal imaging is thriving and still evolving rapidly. Although software approaches for image fusion will continue to be widely used, role of hybrid imaging system become a more relevant set-up, both in research and clinical practice. Inspired by success of PET/CTandSPECT/CT implementations like CT-based motion correction, low dose filtering as well as simultaneous multi-mouse gated kinetic, PET/MR can be considered new frontline in (pre)clinical imaging. Cost savings, minimized radiation exposure for mice and man as well as drastically increases information gain go hand-in-hand with these developments. Integration of structural, functional and molecular imaging with therapeutic intervention represents ultimate multimodality platform for biomedical research and eventual clinical application. Hence multimodal nuclear hybrid imaging is the method of choice for peer-reviewed translational research these days.