Reduced Acquisition Time per Bed Position for PET/MRI Using 68Ga-RM2 or 68Ga-PSMA-11 in Patients With Prostate Cancer: A Retrospective Analysis

BACKGROUND. Growing clinical adoption of PET/MRI for prostate cancer (PC) evaluation has increased interest in reducing PET/MRI scanning times. Reducing acquisition time per bed position below current times of at least 5 minutes would allow shorter examination lengths. OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of different reduced PET acquisition times in patients with PC who underwent 68Ga-PSMA-11 or 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI using highly sensitive silicon photomultiplier-based PET detectors. METHODS. This study involved retrospective review of men with PC who underwent PET/MRI as part of one of two prospective trials. Fifty men (mean [± SD] age, 69.9 ± 6.8 years) who underwent 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI and 50 men (mean age, 66.6 ± 5.7 years) who underwent 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET/MRI were included. PET/MRI used a time-of-flight-enabled system with silicon photomultiplier-based detectors. The acquisition time was 4 minutes per bed position. PET data were reconstructed using acquisition times of 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 4 minutes. Three readers independently assessed image quality for each reconstruction using a 5-point Likert scale (with 1 denoting nondiagnostic and 5 indicating excellent quality). One reader measured SUVmax for up to six lesions per patient. Two readers independently assessed lesion conspicuity using a a 3-point Likert scale (with 1 indicating that lesions were not visualized and 3 denoting that they were definitely visualized). RESULTS. Mean image quality across readers at 30 seconds, 1 minutes, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 4 minutes was, for 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI, from 1.0 ± 0.2 to 1.7 ± 0.7, 2.0 ± 0.3 to 2.6 ± 0.8, 3.1 ± 0.5 to 3.9 ± 0.8, 4.6 ± 0.6 to 4.7 ± 0.6, and 4.8 ± 0.4 to 4.8 ± 0.5, respectively, and for 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET/MRI it was from 1.2 ± 0.4 to 1.8 ± 0.6, 2.2 ± 0.4 to 2.8 ± 0.7, 3.6 ± 0.6 to 4.1± 0.8, 4.8 ± 0.4 to 4.9 ± 0.4, and 4.9 ± 0.3 to 5.0 ± 0.2, respectively. The mean lesion SUVmax for 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI was 11.1 ± 12.4, 10.2 ± 11.7, 9.6 ± 11.3, 9.5 ± 11.6, and 9.4 ± 11.6, respectively, and for 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET/MRI it was 14.7 ± 8.2, 12.9 ± 7.4, 12.1 ± 7.8, 11.7 ± 7.9, and 11.6 ± 7.9, respectively. Mean lesion conspicuity (reader 1/reader 2) was, for 68Ga-RM2 PET/MRI, 2.4 ± 0.5/2.7 ± 0.5, 2.9 ± 0.3/2.9 ± 0.3, 3.0 ± 0.0/3.0 ± 0.0, 3.0 ± 0.0/3.0 ± 0.0, and 3.0 ± 0.0/3.0 ± 0.0, respectively, and for 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET/MRI it was 2.6 ± 0.5/2.8 ± 0.4, 3.0 ± 0.2/2.9 ± 0.3, 3.0 ± 0.1/3.0 ± 0.2, 3.0 ± 0.0/3.0 ± 0.0, and 3.0 ± 0.0/3.0 ± 0.0, respectively. CONCLUSION. Our data support routine 3-minute acquisitions, which provided results very similar to those for 4-minute acquisitions. Two-minute acquisitions, although they lowered quality somewhat, provided acceptable performance and warrant consideration. CLINICAL IMPACT. When PC is evaluated using modern PET/MRI equipment, time per bed position may be reduced compared with historically used times. TRIAL REGISTRATION. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02624518 and NCT02678351.