Positron emission tomography

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a nuclear medicine technique capable of providing functional information of unparalleled sensitivity. It is based on the coincidence detection of annihilation photon pairs, emitted by the decay of a radioactive compound administered to the patient. The wide range of compounds that can be used to deliver the positron emitter to specific metabolic targets makes PET an extraordinarily versatile tool. However, there are intrinsic limitations to the performance of PET imaging, stemming from its underlying physical principles as well as from the technologies required to build clinical scanners. This chapter will introduce the principles of positron imaging to readers without a technical background. The hardware required to detect the emitted photons will be discussed, along with the main data correction techniques and the image reconstruction methods used to transform those measured data into readable images of radiotracer distribution.