Respiratory motion in positron emission tomography for oncology applications: Problems and solutions

The effect of physiological motion in emission tomography is a reduction in overall image contrast and loss of sensitivity. In particular, respiratory motion affects imaging in the thoracic and the upper abdomen area, leading to a reduction in lesion detection as a result of the associated blurring. Furthermore, respiratory motion leads to a compromise in quantitative accuracy in terms of functional volume determination and activity concentration recovery for oncology imaging. This paper presents a review of the current state of the art in the implementation of respiratory motion compensation techniques in positron emission tomography (PET) imaging for oncology applications.