AbstractID: 12064 Title: Practical Aspects of PET Accreditation
PET scanner accreditation is based on reviews of images acquired from the ACR PET phantom. The phantom is relatively easy to fill and set up for a PET
study and can be used to measure tomographic uniformity, spatial resolution, and the detectability of “hot” lesions. The variety of resolution and “hot”
components enables the reviewers to see relatively subtle differences in system performance.
The accreditation phantom images are submitted to a review panel of qualified medical physicists for scoring. The Nuclear Medicine Accreditation Committee
has defined acceptable standards for uniformity, spatial resolution and lesion detection.
Uniformity and noise are evaluated qualitatively by inspection of reconstructed tomographic sections. Optimal density ranges should be comparable to those
used for clinical images. Spatial resolution is judged by identifying the smallest “cold” rods in the phantom and lesion detectability is determined from the
“hot” cylinders. The same protocol is also used for the “cold” cylinders that demonstrate the effectiveness of the attenuation and scatter corrections.
Educational Objectives:
1. Be aware of the ACR PET accreditation process and PET Physicist Qualifications.
2. Understand the ACR PET Phantom and testing required for ACR accreditation.
3. Understand how phantom images are reviewed by the ACR.
4. Be able to activate the ACR Phantom.
5. Understand phantom image acquisition and processing.
6. Understand PET phantom image contrast, resolution, and uniformity.