Automated assessment of functional lung imaging with

Functional lung mapping from Ga Sixty-six patients recruited from a prospective clinical trial underwent both V/Q PET/CT imaging and PFT analysis before treatment. PET images were normalised using an iterative histogram analysis technique to account for tracer hotspots prior to the threshold-based delineation of varying values. Pearson's correlation between fractional lung function and PFT score was calculated for ventilation, perfusion, and matched imaging volumes at varying threshold values. For all functional imaging thresholds, only FEV1/FVC PFT yielded reasonable correlations to image-based functional volume. For ventilation, a range of 10-30% of adapted peak uptake value provided a reasonable threshold to define a volume that correlated with FEV1/FVC (r = 0.54-0.61). For perfusion imaging, a similar correlation was observed (r = 0.51-0.56) in the range of 20-60% adapted peak threshold. Matched volumes were closely linked to ventilation with a threshold range of 15-35% yielding a similar correlation (r = 0.55-0.58). Histogram normalisation may be implemented to determine the presence of tracer clumping hotspots in Ga-68 V/Q PET imaging allowing for automated delineation of functional lung and standardisation of functional volume reporting.