Abstract
Aim: To evaluate the feasibility of the radiation dose lowering during 18F-FDG-PET/CT in children. Material and method: In 15 children in the age 4 to 14 years, 20 examinations of PET/CT with the application of 18F-FDG were performed.
The dosing of 2 MBq of 18F-FDG per kilogram of body weight was used. The whole-body or whole trunk imaging was used four ring PET subsystem with the 22.8 cm of field of view detector, 1.5 minutes per bed data acquisition and time of flight and point spread function reconstructions; the low-kilovolt exposition with preferred 80 KV was used in 128-detector-row CT subsystem, CT data were reconstructed using iterative reconstruction of the second generation.
Results: All examinations were evaluated as adequate from the point of view of diagnostic quality of examination, the applied radiopharmaceutical activity varied between 39 to 142 MBq. The coupled staging and interim (or restaging) examinations were performed in three children, in one child the secondadditional follow-up study was added to complete the therapy response imaging.
The radiation dose quantified with dose length product varied between 39 to 66 mGy in trunk examination and, 83 to 150 mGy in whole body imaging. Conclusion: Hybrid imaging 18F-FDG-PET/CT with low "F-FDG-dosing reaches the optimal diagnostic quality the dose will drop down using the advanced techniques of the data acquisition and reconstruction both on PET and CT subsystems.