# An end-to-end deep learning pipeline to derive blood input with partial volume corrections for automated parametric brain PET mapping

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.03414 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03414/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 55 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Feb 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [3D U-Net: Learning Dense Volumetric Segmentation from Sparse Annotation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.06650/) (2016)
- [On the Properties of Neural Machine Translation: Encoder-Decoder Approaches](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1259/) (2014)
- [UNETR: Transformers for 3D Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.10504/) (2021)
- [Medical Transformer: Gated Axial-Attention for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.10662/) (2021)
- [Transformers in Time-series Analysis: A Tutorial](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01138/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Dynamic 2-[18F] fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (dFDG-PET) for human brain imaging has considerable clinical potential, yet its utilization remains limited. A key challenge in the quantitative analysis of dFDG-PET is characterizing a patient-specific blood input function, traditionally reliant on invasive arterial blood sampling. This research introduces a novel approach employing non-invasive deep learning model-based computations from the internal carotid arteries (ICA) with partial volume (PV) corrections, thereby eliminating the need for invasive arterial sampling. We present an end-to-end pipeline incorporating a 3D U-Net based ICA-net for ICA segmentation, alongside a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) based MCIF-net for the derivation of a model-corrected blood input function (MCIF) with PV corrections. The developed 3D U-Net and RNN was trained and validated using a 5-fold cross-validation approach on 50 human brain FDG PET datasets. The ICA-net achieved an average Dice score of 82.18% and an Intersection over Union of 68.54% across all tested scans. Furthermore, the MCIF-net exhibited a minimal root mean squared error of 0.0052. The application of this pipeline to ground truth data for dFDG-PET brain scans resulted in the precise localization of seizure onset regions, which contributed to a successful clinical outcome, with the patient achieving a seizure-free state after treatment. These results underscore the efficacy of the ICA-net and MCIF-net deep learning pipeline in learning the ICA structure's distribution and automating MCIF computation with PV corrections. This advancement marks a significant leap in non-invasive neuroimaging.