A Single Dual-Tracer PET Imaging Acquisition to Provide Information on Tumor Heterogeneities

In PET imaging, the use of different tracers may provide complementary information on tumor heterogeneities. A single PET acquisition with dual-tracer injection prevents bias between sequential acquisitions. As already shown in the literature, it is possible to separate two PET signals from equal half-life isotope tracers based on their pharmacokinetics. With the goal of building a generic framework for reconstructing separated images of each tracer from dual-tracer PET acquisitions, we propose to take benefits from a spectral model without any assumptions about kinetics. Using 1D simulations of FLT+FDG, we evaluated the ability of the model to separate and extract parameters of interest for each tracer with respect to the delay between injections.