(Monday, 4/1/2019) 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Orange Blossom Ballroom
Nuclear medicine and PET imaging exams performed on adults can also be performed on children and infants, however pediatric disease processes and the logistical and technical demands for imaging of children may markedly differ from those practiced in the adult population. On the other hand, images in pediatric nuclear medicine must be of exceptional diagnostic quality while maintaining very low doses adjusted to each child according to established standards. For example, radiopharmaceutical administered doses can be adapted to the specific diagnostic task under consideration of the appropriate choice of collimator, so that the desired diagnostic information can be obtained at reduced radiopharmaceutical administered activity. Thus the application of diagnostic nuclear medicine in children presents a particular set of challenges that call for special consideration in order to yield premium-quality clinical information to the referring practitioner. Namely the acquisition of image data, the choice of instrumentation, and the processing method. This session will provide an overview of the physical aspects of the acquisition, the equipment used, and the image processing that is applied to these studies in the context of pediatric nuclear medicine and PET, with emphasis on distinctions in the anatomy, physiology, or logistical approaches between children and adult protocols. Having or lacking a clear understanding of these choices can enhance or hinder the quality of the nuclear medicine imaging which is essential for this specialized class of patients.
Learning Objectives:
1. Become familiar with the pediatric specific challenges in nuclear medicine and PET imaging and their distinctions from the adult side of things.
2. Learn of novel technological approaches in protocol and instrumentation design that have arrived or are on the near horizon such as PET-MR studies or novel post processing methods in conventional modalities.
3. Learn how recent developments such as improved detectors, increased computing power, and novel reconstruction algorithms have allowed for significant reduction of injected doses in pediatric imaging, and understand how these advances have generally led to exams with improved sensitivity or image quality enhancements with lower counts, allowing for the extension of these technologies to smaller children or the reduction of radiation dose to patients while still providing high-quality clinical results.
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