Motion study on upright patient positioning in walk-through PET: evaluation in a clinical setting

The upright WT-PET scanner presents distinct motion control challenges in clinical practice. This study demonstrates that combining ergonomic supports with breath-holding protocols can effectively reduce patient motion during upright PET imaging; however, a full 30-s breath-hold is not feasible for 70% of patients. Since 50% of patients were able to perform a moderate breath-hold, a two-step acquisition can be performed, each comprising 15 s. Moreover, including a healthy volunteer control group and comparisons with conventional PET confirm both the feasibility and the current limitations of the WT-PET.