Comparing Dynamic Suv and Cortical Thickness Between Healthy Controls and Epilepsy Patients Using Simultaneous Pet/Mr

480 Objectives A combined PET/MR scanner with simultaneous acquisition allows direct correlations of PET data with MR-detected parameters on the same subject at the same time. This multi-modal analysis will facilitate the identification of an optimal biomarker. Here we report our study to compare dynamic SUV and cortical thickness between controls (HC) and epilepsy patients (Ep) using simultaneous PET/MR. Methods Subjects (11 HC and 27 Ep) were imaged on a combined PET/MR scanner (Biograph mMR, Siemens). After FDG injection, dynamic PET scans and simultaneous MR imaging (including T1, T2 and other sequences) were acquired for ~90 minutes. Dixon sequence was acquired for attenuation correction. PET data were reconstructed using the e7tools provided by Siemens. Images were processed using Freesurfer, a fully automated image analysis tool. Over 100 masks (ROIs), including left and right, for cortical and subcortical regions were generated. Statistical analyses on mean SUV for entire study (SUVmean_all), meanSUV derived from the last three frames (SUVmean_late), and mean cortical thickness were compared between groups. Results Based on Mann-Whitney U tests, SUVmean_late values showed significant differences between groups for most ROIs, while no difference was seen with SUVmean_all. Temporal_Mid_tempocci consistently showed significant difference when normalized SUV values were compared (p Conclusions Our results suggest that simultaneous PET/MR imaging provides a useful imaging tool to identify regional abnormality, and that SUVmean_late and cortical thickness are independent biomarkers for epilepsy. Research Support NIH P41 EB017183