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Whole-Body PET Parametric Imaging for Pediatric Patients

Award Number: R01EB039019
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE Of BIOMEDICAL IMAGING & BIOENGINEERING
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 05/12/2026
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 04/11/2030

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Whole-Body PET Parametric Imaging for Pediatric Patients - PROJECT SUMMARY. Whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) and other radiotracers has become an essential tool for diagnosing and managing pediatric cancers, such as lymphoma and sarcoma. Current clinical practice relies on static PET imaging to obtain a semi-quantitative standardized uptake value (SUV), which can be affected by scan time and body characteristics. Dynamic PET addresses this issue by using tracer kinetic modeling approaches, such as the standard Patlak plot, to derive a quantitative net influx rate 𝐾i for improved disease characterization compared to SUV. While Patlak parametric imaging has been adopted on certain PET scanners and has demonstrated clinical benefits in adult patients, its use in pediatrics remains severely limited due to the impracticality of acquiring full-length (e.g., 1 hour) dynamic scans and the lack of available pediatric databases for establishing the population-based input functions. The goal of this project is to develop and evaluate a practical parametric imaging method tailored for pediatrics. This method can be directly applied to clinical total-body PET scans (e.g., 10 minutes at 1-hour post-injection) to provide kinetic quantification on top of SUVs. The enabling technique is the Relative Patlak (RP) plot, which relies solely on the late-time input function without the need for the early-time data. This feature makes the RP plot a unique solution for enabling whole-body parametric imaging in pediatrics compared to other streamlined Patlak methods. Our preliminary work with adult patient data has demonstrated the RP method for lesion detection and absolute quantification using the standard Patlak method as a reference. The focus of this R01 grant is to translate the RP technique to enable whole-body parametric imaging in pediatric patients and evaluate its clinical benefits in the context of pediatric oncology. Specifically, we will (1) develop tomographic image reconstruction methods to enable total-body parametric imaging for pediatrics from a 10-minute (or shorter) clinical scan; (2) evaluate total-body RP parametric imaging for lesion detection and treatment response prediction in pediatric cancer patients; (3) extend the RP method to short-axial PET scanners for practical whole- body parametric imaging. Successful completion of this project will develop a new pediatric parametric imaging approach that can be adapted to existing workflows without prolonging scan time. This fills a critical gap in pediatric PET imaging by enabling a safe, efficient, and quantitative kinetic analysis, opening new opportunities for exploring clinical applications that have previously been restricted to adult studies or limited by the complexities of parametric imaging. Moreover, our method is adaptable for both advanced total-body scanners and conventional short-axial scanners, making pediatric whole-body parametric imaging widely accessible.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $2,238,460 )
2026	2026	UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS	1850 RESEARCH PARK DR STE 300	DAVIS	CA	95618	YOLO	USA	Discovery and Applied Research for Technological Innovations to Improve Human Health	000	1	5/12/2026	NEW	$2,238,460
														Subtotal = $2,238,460

Grand Total All Awards = $2,238,460

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Whole-Body PET Parametric Imaging for Pediatric Patients

Award Number: R01EB039019

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE Of BIOMEDICAL IMAGING & BIOENGINEERING

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 05/12/2026

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 04/11/2030

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