Leek, Francesca Alice Allen;
(2025)
Phantom design to enable harmonisation of quantitative PET imaging for lung disease.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are characterised by distortions in normal lung parenchyma, resulting in regions of dense scar tissue and/or large air pockets. 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)-computed tomography (CT) can be used to assess lung inflammation and fibrosis-related processes due to increased macrophage and neutrophil activity. However, accurate quantification of radiopharmaceutical uptake from lung PET-CT is challenging, due, in part, to large variations in fractions of air. This project developed digital test objects to validate pre-existing attenuation and air fraction correction (AFC) methods and explored the need for resolution matching between PET and CT. Resolution dependence on radiopharmaceutical uptake, tissue structure, and reconstruction convergence were assessed. Current harmonisation efforts in PET-CT focus on oncology and brain studies; however, there is a similar need for studies of diffuse lung disease. Practical implementation of a resolution matching method was investigated with 18F-FDG scans of a modified commercially available thorax phantom on clinical PET-CT scanners. Novel physical phantoms were then designed, and refined, to better approximate diseased lung density and structure, and to simplify parameter determination and validation. The designed phantoms comply with the requirements of being easy to prepare, quick to process, while having features relevant to patient data. The latter was ensured through analytic and Monte Carlo simulations. This work sets the groundwork for the assessment of the accuracy and reproducibility of lung PET imaging in a multi-centre setting.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Phantom design to enable harmonisation of quantitative PET imaging for lung disease |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Med Phys and Biomedical Eng UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10211809 |
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