| Summary: | Introduction: There has already been a rising demand in
utilising phantom for hybrid Positron Emission
Tomography/ Computed Tomography (PET/CT) scanner of
nuclear imaging. This review further clarifies this topic and
investigates how the previous research phantoms operated
with the need for quantitative hybrid nuclear imaging of
PET/CT while providing a relatively high image quality when
it was performed. In this article, the necessity of previous
and current phantom studies in hybrid nuclear imaging of
PET/CT scanners is reviewed.
Methods: PubMed and Google Scholar were systematically
searched for the relevant studies by following the PRISMA
2009 checklist. A past decade literature search was
conducted from 2010 until November 2020 to secure the
relevance of the phantom study. Databases were recruited
using keywords such as phantom, quantification,
standardisation, harmonisation, image quality, standardised
uptake value and multicentre study. However, all keywords
were related to PET/CT. All abstracts and eligible full-text
articles were screened independently, and finally, the quality
assessments of this review were performed.
Results: From the 200 retrieved articles, 80 were rejected
after the screening of the abstracts and 35 after reading the
full-text. The 20 accepted articles addressed the distribution
of phantom types used in selected articles studies which
were NEMA (67%), ACR (8%) and others (25%). The articles
showed the various experimental studies, either phantom
studies (35%) or phantom plus clinical studies (65%). For
clinical studies (n = 829), the distribution of prospective
studies was (n = 674) and retrospective studies was (n =155).
The distribution of phantom pathway application showed the
studies focused on 40% of reconstruction protocol studies,
30% of the multicentre and standardisation of accreditation
program studies, and 30% of the quantification of uptake
values studies.
Conclusions: According to this review, the phantom study
have a pivotal role in hybrid nuclear imaging of PET/CT
either in technical aspects of the scanners (such as data
acquisition and reconstruction protocol) or clinical
characteristics of patients. In addition to this, the necessity
to identify the suitable system phantoms to use within PET/CT scans by considering the continuous development
of new phantom studies are needed. Researchers are
encouraged to adopt efforts on phantom quantitative
validation, including verification with clinical data of
patients.
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