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PET/MRI in cancer patients: first experiences and vision from Copenhagen

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Abstract

Combined PET/MRI systems are now commercially available and are expected to change the medical imaging field by providing combined anato-metabolic image information. We believe this will be of particular relevance in imaging of cancer patients. At the Department of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine & PET at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen we installed an integrated PET/MRI in December 2011. Here, we describe our first clinical PET/MR cases and discuss some of the areas within oncology where we envision promising future application of integrated PET/MR imaging in clinical routine. Cases described include brain tumors, pediatric oncology as well as lung, abdominal and pelvic cancer. In general the cases show that PET/MRI performs well in all these types of cancer when compared to PET/CT. However, future large-scale clinical studies are needed to establish when to use PET/MRI. We envision that PET/MRI in oncology will prove to become a valuable addition to PET/CT in diagnosing, tailoring and monitoring cancer therapy in selected patient populations.

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Acknowledgments

The excellent work of Karin Stahr and Jakúp Poulsen performing the PET/MRI scans and the helpful comments and discussions with Thomas Beyer are gratefully acknowledged. We are grateful to the John and Birthe Meyer foundation for donation of the PET/MRI system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine & PET, University of Copenhagen, KF-4012 Rigshospitalet, Blegdamsvej 9, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Andreas Kjær, Annika Loft, Ian Law, Anne Kiil Berthelsen, Lise Borgwardt, Johan Löfgren, Camilla Bardram Johnbeck, Adam Espe Hansen, Sune Keller, Søren Holm & Liselotte Højgaard

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  1. Andreas Kjær
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Correspondence to Andreas Kjær.

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Kjær, A., Loft, A., Law, I. et al. PET/MRI in cancer patients: first experiences and vision from Copenhagen. Magn Reson Mater Phy 26, 37–47 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-012-0357-0

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