Guidelines for the content and format of PET brain data in publications and archives: A consensus paper

• Published in: Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism Vol. 40; no. 8; pp. 1576 - 1585
• Main Authors: Knudsen, Gitte M, Ganz, Melanie, Appelhoff, Stefan, Boellaard, Ronald, Bormans, Guy, Carson, Richard E, Catana, Ciprian, Doudet, Doris, Gee, Antony D, Greve, Douglas N, Gunn, Roger N, Halldin, Christer, Herscovitch, Peter, Huang, Henry, Keller, Sune H, Lammertsma, Adriaan A, Lanzenberger, Rupert, Liow, Jeih-San, Lohith, Talakad G, Lubberink, Mark, Lyoo, Chul H, Mann, J John, Matheson, Granville J, Nichols, Thomas E, Nørgaard, Martin, Ogden, Todd, Parsey, Ramin, Pike, Victor W, Price, Julie, Rizzo, Gaia, Rosa-Neto, Pedro, Schain, Martin, Scott, Peter JH, Searle, Graham, Slifstein, Mark, Suhara, Tetsuya, Talbot, Peter S, Thomas, Adam, Veronese, Mattia, Wong, Dean F, Yaqub, Maqsood, Zanderigo, Francesca, Zoghbi, Sami, Innis, Robert B
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.08.2020
• Subjects: Brain - diagnostic imaging; Consensus; Consensus guidelines; data sharing; data structure; Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - standards; Neuroimaging - methods; Neuroimaging - standards; open source; Opinion; positron emission tomography; Positron-Emission Tomography - methods; Positron-Emission Tomography - standards; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Radiopharmaceuticals; Reproducibility of Results; open source; Consensus guidelines; positron emission tomography; data sharing; data structure
• ISSN: 0271-678X; 1559-7016; 1559-7016
• DOI: 10.1177/0271678X20905433

It is a growing concern that outcomes of neuroimaging studies often cannot be replicated. To counteract this, the magnetic resonance (MR) neuroimaging community has promoted acquisition standards and created data sharing platforms, based on a consensus on how to organize and share MR neuroimaging data. Here, we take a similar approach to positron emission tomography (PET) data. To facilitate comparison of findings across studies, we first recommend publication standards for tracer characteristics, image acquisition, image preprocessing, and outcome estimation for PET neuroimaging data. The co-authors of this paper, representing more than 25 PET centers worldwide, voted to classify information as mandatory, recommended, or optional. Second, we describe a framework to facilitate data archiving and data sharing within and across centers. Because of the high cost of PET neuroimaging studies, sample sizes tend to be small and relatively few sites worldwide have the required multidisciplinary expertise to properly conduct and analyze PET studies. Data sharing will make it easier to combine datasets from different centers to achieve larger sample sizes and stronger statistical power to test hypotheses. The combining of datasets from different centers may be enhanced by adoption of a common set of best practices in data acquisition and analysis.