Performance Evaluation of the Small-Animal nanoScan PET/MRI System

nanoScan is a high-resolution integrated system for consecutive PET and MR imaging of small laboratory animals. We evaluated the performance of the system, using the NEMA NU 4-2008 protocol for the PET component and the NEMA MS 1-2007, MS 2-2008, and MS 3-2007 standards for the MR imaging component. Methods: The imaging system uses magnetically shielded position-sensitive photomultiplier tubes and a compact 1-T permanent-magnet MR imaging platform. Spatial resolution, sensitivity, counting rate capa-bilities, and image quality parameters were evaluated in accor-dance with the aforementioned NEMA standards. Further in vivo evaluation experiments complement the physical validation results. Results: The spatial resolution of the PET system enabled the 0.8-mm rods of a Derenzo phantom to be resolved. With point source and 2-dimensional filtered backprojection reconstruction, the reso-lution varied from 1.50 to 2.01 mm in full width at half maximu