Non-invasive quantification of nuclear brain images

This technology is a non-invasive method for quantifying nuclear imaging and tomographic brain images acquired with the use of injected contrast agents without the need for blood sampling.

Unmet Need: Method for nuclear imaging without blood-sampling

Current methods for nuclear imaging, including positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT), require invasive real-time blood sampling for quantifying time-series brain images. Typically, sampling is done via an arterial catheter, which is costly, risky to patients, time consuming, and requires a specialist. While some techniques exist that reduce number of required blood samples from 20 down to 1-3 for some tracers, the overall requirement of blood sampling limits clinical utility of many research tracers. Currently, there are no available methods that are totally non-invasive that do not rely on blood sampling.

The Technology: Non-invasive method for quantifying time-series brain images

This technology is a non-invasive method for estimating tracer blood concentration for nuclear imaging. This model eliminates the need for blood sampling by utilizing data obtained directly from the imaging signal combined with physiological parameters specified in the patients’ electronic health record (EHR). For this, the imaging data and electronic health records can be used to predict one or more anchors to generate an arterial input function (AIF) for the radioligand. An optimized framework is then able to quantify the various images. As a result, this technology provides an effective, non-invasive method for quantifying image data.

This technology has been validated retrospectively using EHR and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging from 95 patients who underwent neuroreceptor mapping.

Applications:

• Nuclear image quantification
• Tomographic brain image quantification
• Estimating arterial input function
• Optimization framework may be able to be applied to diagnosing cardiac problems

Advantages:

• Non-invasive
• Can be used in clinics
• Reduces both physical and mental stress imposed on patients
• Removes added expenses of blood sampling and analysis

Lead Inventor:

Andrew Laine, Ph.D.

Patent Information:

Patent Pending (US 20170039706)

Related Publications:

• Roccia E, Mikhno A, Zanderigo F, Angelini ED, Ogden RT, Mann JJ, Laine AF. “Non-invasive quantification of brain [¹⁸F]-FDG uptake by combining medical health records and dynamic PET imaging data” Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2015;2015:2243-6.

• Mikhno A, Zanderigo F, Todd Ogden R, John Mann J, Angelini ED, Laine AF, Parsey RV. “Toward noninvasive quantification of brain radioligand binding by combining electronic health records and dynamic PET imaging data” IEEE J Biomed Health Inform. 2015 Jul;19(4):1271-82.

• Mikhno A, Angelini ED, Bai B, Laine AF. “Locally weighted total variation denoising for ringing artifact suppression in PET reconstruction using PSF modeling” IEEE Int Symp Biomed Imaging. 2013 Dec 31; 2013: 1252–1255.

Tech Ventures Reference:

• IR CU14274

• Licensing Contact: Jerry Kokoshka