Patent Document ID: 9342882
Application ID: 14019605
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for determining a concentration of a contrast agent in imaging data, the method comprising: calculating a pre-contrast attenuation map of a region of interest of a patient; following an administering of the contrast agent to the patient, calculating a post-contrast attenuation map of the region of interest of the patient; determining whether a PET radiotracer tracer has reached a steady-state biological distribution in the patient, comprising: acquiring first PET tracer kinetics prior to the administering of the contrast agent to the patient; acquiring second PET tracer kinetics after the administering of the contrast agent to the patient; and determining whether the PET radiotracer tracer has reached the steady-state biological distribution by comparing the first PET tracer kinetics with the second PET tracer kinetics; and if the PET radiotracer tracer has not reached a steady-state biological distribution, adjusting the post-contrast attenuation map to reflect a change in biological distribution between the pre-contrast attenuation map and the post-contrast attenuation map; determining an increase in attenuation value based on the pre-contrast attenuation map and the post-contrast attenuation map; and calculating a contrast agent concentration map for the region of interest based on the increase in attenuation value.