In a recent interview at the SNMMI conference, Roger Lecomte, Ph.D., and Vincent Doyon discussed the advent of ultra-high resolution (UHR) brain positron emission tomography (PET), which reportedly offers double the spatial resolution of conventional PET and may facilitate earlier detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions.
Emphasizing pixelated detectors and an isotropic spatial resolution upward of 1.25 mm, ultra-high resolution (UHR) brain positron emission tomography (PET) represents a significant advance that provides improved characterization and quantification of brain regions that could not be seen with whole-body PET, noted Roger Lecomte, Ph.D., during a recent interview at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) conference.
“The spatial resolution is a factor of two better than HRRT (High Resolution Research Tomograph) and a factor of three better than any clinical scanners today. It’s a quantum leap in terms of spatial resolution,” said Dr. Lecomte, a professor of nuclear medicine and radiobiology at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada. “To image the brain where you have small structures in the cortex, the brain stem and different regions of the brain, spatial resolution is very important to be able to detect the uptake of radiotracers in very tiny structures.”
One of the areas of improvement with UHR PET imaging was the enhanced visualization of the subfields of the hippocampus that can play a role in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, according to Vincent Doyon, who presented some of the preliminary findings with UHR PET at the SNMMI conference.
“Depending on how these subfields are affected in the disease, we can see whether treatments are effective for the patient,” added Doyon, a master’s student in the Department of Radiation Sciences and Biomedical Imaging at the University of Sherbrooke.
Donyon added that UHR PET offers enhanced visualization of brainstem nuclei, including raphe nuclei, that may aid in the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorders.
For other insights from Dr. Lecomte and Mr. Doyon, watch the video below.
Mammography Study Compares False Positives Between AI and Radiologists in DBT Screening
May 8th 2025For DBT breast cancer screening, 47 percent of radiologist-only flagged false positives involved mass presentations whereas 40 percent of AI-only flagged false positive cases involved benign calcifications, according to research presented at the recent American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) conference.
MRI Study at ARRS Raises Questions About Disparities in Detection of MASLD
May 3rd 2025New research revealed that Hispanic Americans with evidence of hepatic steatosis on MRI but no formal diagnosis of MASLD had over a fourfold higher risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma in comparison to those who had a formal diagnosis of MASLD.
FDA Clears MRI-Based AI Segmentation of Organs at Risk During Radiation Therapy
May 2nd 2025Capable of segmenting over 37 organs and structures in the head, neck and pelvis, the MR Contour DL software is currently being showcased at the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) conference.
Study Examines CT-Based AI Detection of Incidental Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms
April 29th 2025The AI software Viz AAA offered a sensitivity of 87.5 percent in detecting abdominal aortic aneurysms on contrast-enhanced CT, according to new retrospective research presented at the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) conference.