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CompletedNCT05496920ULD-PETUpdated Oct 3, 2024

Assessing Ultra-low Dose PET/CT and CT-less PET Using a Long Axial Field-of-view PET/CT System

An interventional study of FD-PET/CT and LD-PET/CT in PET/CT, sponsored by Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern. Completed at 1 site in Switzerland. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2024-10-03.

Sponsored by Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern · Not applicable, Interventional, and Diagnostic

From the registry’s dates

  • Registered 3 months after the study started (first participant enrolled May 2022, registered Aug 2022).
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
44
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Latest generation extended axial field-of-view (FOV) PET/CT systems offer the potential for substantial reductions in applied radiopharmaceutical necessary for a clinical scan. However, such low-dose examination protocols have yet to be robustly tested or demonstrated to be non-inferior. Furthermore, extended FOV scanners offer the potential for CT-less attenuation correction of the PET emission data, making clinically acceptable ultra-low dose examination protocols with radiation exposures of \< 1 millisievert possible for the first time. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the clinical acceptability of such low and ultra-low dose scanning protocols in a head-to-head prospective study against a full-dose scan using a regular FOV system

Read the detailed description

The first installation of a long-axial field-of-view (LAFOV) PET/CT system occurred in October 2020 at the department for nuclear medicine in Bern. This scanner along with recently introduced total-body scanners (TB-PET/CT) represent a substantial step forward in terms of nuclear medicine imaging technology. In conjunction with recent improvements in time-of-flight resolution and fully-digital detection technology, such systems offer surpassed sensitivity with improvements in image quality, lesion detection and diagnostic certainty. In contrast to LAFOV systems, standard axial field of view (SAFOV) scanners suffer from limited detection efficiency, where 90% of emitted photons go undetected owing to the ability to capture signal from only a small portion of the body (termed "bed position" or "bp").

However, while a number of studies are able to simulate lower applied radiopharmaceutical activities through the re-sampling of PET-sinogrammes or the rebinning of list-mode data, few studies adequately test the application of lower radiopharmaceutical activities, where limited data are available to justify the deviation from clinical routine. The clinical acceptability of such low-dose scans, in terms of lesion detection, image quality and lesion quantification is yet to be determined, which this study aims to address.

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Conditions studied

  • PET/CT

Keywords

  • PET/CT, low dose, long-axial field-of-view, extended field-of-view, total-body PET
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In context

Lead sponsor

Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern is the lead sponsor of 724 studies on the registry; 177 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

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Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

  • Adults (>18 years) able to provide informed consent for inclusion, willing and able to undergo a PET/CT for the detection or staging of cancer.
  • Individuals undergoing a PET/CT with 18F-FDG for the investigation of known or suspected NSCLC.
  • Upper fasting plasma glucose levels of \<8.3 mmol/L (\<150 mg/dL) (as measured >30 mins prior to the administration of the radiopharmaceutical).

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Patients who are unable to consent to a second study-specific examination
  • Patients with claustrophobia requiring medication.
  • Patients who commence active treatment of a cancer or other pathology between scans.
  • Patients who have not fasted for > 4 hours prior to the study.
  • Insulin dependent diabetics.
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Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Diagnostic
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
44 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Single Arm

    Patients will receive both a standard of care PET/CT and a low dose PET/CT

    Diagnostic Test: FD-PET/CT · Diagnostic Test: LD-PET/CT

Interventions

  • Diagnostic testFD-PET/CT

    Standard of care PET/CT with full dose (FD) of the radiopharmaceutical

  • Diagnostic testLD-PET/CT

    Additional low dose PET/CT performed within protocol defined time frame LD-PET/CT with additional ultra-low dose CT-less reconstruction

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Intra-rater correlation coefficient

    ICC for Cancer Stage using the union for international cancer control (UICC) TNM (T= tumor, N= nodal stage, M = metastasis) System (8th Edition) for low dose positron emission and computed tomography (LD-PET/CT) exams compared to the standard of care (SOC) full-dose (FD)-PET/CT as assessed by a panel of physicians

    Time frame: 2-6 weeks following scan

Secondary outcomes

  1. Intra-rater correlation coefficient

    ICC for ultra-low dose (ULD)-PET/CT compared to FD- and LD-PET/CT

    Time frame: 2-6 weeks following scan

  2. Lesion uptake

    Composite outcome assessing lesion quantification in terms of peak standardised uptake value (SUVpeak), tumour to background (TBR), metabolic tumour volume (MTV) and tumour glycolytic activity (TLG) for ULD- and LD-PET/CT compared to the standard of care FD-PET/CT

    Time frame: 2-6 weeks following scan

  3. Image quality

    Composite outcome assessing image quality in terms of tumour to background ratio (TBR) and signal to noise (SNR), defined as the reciprocal coefficient of variation (COV) for ULD- and LD-PET/CT compared to the standard of care FD-PET/CT

    Time frame: 2-6 weeks following scan

  4. Subjective quality

    Image quality (subjective) as rated by five independent nuclear medicine physicians on a five-point Likert scale (1= unacceptable, 2=poor, 3=moderate, 4=good, 5=high) for ULD- and LD-PET/CT compared to the standard of care FD-PET/CT

    Time frame: 2-6 weeks following scan

  5. Agreement

    Inter-reader agreement for the primary outcome (UICC cancer stage) shall be compared between LD and FD-PET/CT

    Time frame: 2-6 weeks following scan

  6. Diagnostic accuracy

    Assessment of the positive predictive value (PPV) for LD- and FD-PET/CT for patients who undergo surgery or bronchoscopy and where histopathological confirmation of true positive (TP) and false positive (FP) findings are available

    Time frame: 2-6 weeks following scan

Other outcomes

  1. Acceptability

    Additional outcome of interest: Patient and referrer acceptability of low-dose PET/CT examinations examined by means of a structured questionnaire.

    Time frame: 2-6 weeks following scan

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Study locations

1 site
  • Inselspital, Universitätsspital Bern
    Bern, 3010, Switzerland
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References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Oct 3, 2024, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
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Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT05496920
Lead sponsor
Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Aug 11, 2022
Start date
May 5, 2022
Primary completion
Aug 8, 2024
Completion
Aug 8, 2024
Last update
Oct 3, 2024

Study contacts

Axel O Rominger, MD
study chair · Inselspital

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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This study is completed, as verified in Oct 2024. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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