Clinical Research Directory

Impact of Free Mobility on FDG Uptake in PET Scans

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a rather long examination (around 2 hours), involving an injection of 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), which requires the patient to rest for 1 hour between the injection and the start of imaging. Some hospitals allow the patient to sit, read or use the telephone, but none allow the patient to move freely after injection, hence the interest of this work. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that free mobilization of the patient following 18F-FDG injection does not result in any significant difference in imaging quality (particularly muscular fixations), and therefore a medical interpretation identical to that of a patient who remains at rest.

Developing a Whole-body MRI and Diffusion-weighted Imaging State-of-the-art Protocol: a Pilot Study

Whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (WB-MRI) is a non-ionizing imaging method that can provide WB coverage using essential imaging contrasts with the possibility to include sequences focusing in specific body-regions as needed per case. WB-MRI is increasingly being used for the management of cancer patients, especially metastatic ones. An integral part of WB-MRI is becoming whole-body diffusion-weighted MRI (WB-DWI) which is a non-invasive tool used for staging and response evaluation in oncologic practice. WB-DWI is an inherently noisy technique, resulting in it accounting for more than 50% of the acquisition time of conventional whole-body MRI studies with overall duration at least 1-hour. Reducing acquisition times, without compromising image or diagnostic quality would facilitate the wider adoption of clinical WBDWI, reducing costs, and improving the patient experience