Patent ID: 9254111
Filing Date: 2016-02-09
CPC Classification: A61B

Claim Text:
1. A method of operating a combined PET-MRI scanner comprising: acquiring a sequence of MR scout images of a subject with a processing device in communication with MR imaging components to acquire the sequence of the MR scout images of the subject via a MRI scanner portion of the combined PET-MRI scanner; automatically determining an anatomy and an orientation of the subject at various table positions with the processing device based on the MR scout images; and automatically generating a sequence of table positions and scan durations for each table position for acquiring PET scans of the subject with the processing device in communication with PET imaging components and the MR imaging components to acquire a sequence of PET scans of the subject via a PET scanner portion and according to the sequence programmatically generated based on the anatomy of the subject determined from the MR scout images, wherein each of the scan durations are determined based on at least one of an expected PET attenuation or whether retrospective respiratory gating will be used for a region identified in the MR scout images.