[Vienna, Austria, Sunday, 18 October 2026] — A next-generation total-body PET/CT scanner can produce diagnostic-quality images in as little as one minute of scanning, according to research presented today at the 39th Annual Congress of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM'26) .1 Even its fastest images were rated more highly on average than those from a standard PET/CT scanner.
PET/CT is widely used to diagnose, stage and monitor cancer. Conventional PET/CT scanners have a short axial field of view, meaning they image the body section by section, typically requiring five to six 'bed positions' to cover the body from head to thigh.2 Long-axial field-of-view (LA-FOV) systems capture a much larger part of the body at once and detect more of the signal emitted by the radiotracer, raising the possibility of much shorter scans without sacrificing image quality.2,3
In the EQUIP study, researchers at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, evaluated a next-generation 128 cm LA-FOV PET/CT system (GE HealthCare Omni 128 cm).1,4 Twenty-four participants who had received one of five radiotracers (¹⁸F-FDG, ¹⁸F-DCFPyL, ⁶⁸Ga-DOTATATE, ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA or ¹²⁴I) underwent a standard-of-care scan on a conventional short-axial field-of-view (SA-FOV) PET/CT system, followed by a 10-minute scan on the LA-FOV system. The researchers then reconstructed images from the LA-FOV scan using just five, three, two and one minute of data.
Two nuclear medicine specialists, who were unaware of the acquisition times, graded the images on a five-point scale for overall diagnostic quality, sharpness and lesion conspicuity (how clearly lesions stand out from surrounding tissue) and image noise.
Mean image scores were in the good or excellent range at every acquisition time. Average diagnostic quality scores were 5.0 for the ten- and five-minute images, 4.9 for the three- and two-minute images and 4.5 for the one-minute images. By comparison, the conventional scanner scored 3.9 for diagnostic quality, with lower average scores than the LA-FOV system across all assessed categories and acquisition times.
"A one-minute scan on this system gave us images that our readers rated more highly than the standard-of-care scans we perform every day," explained lead author Dr Cameron Pain. "That was the striking finding: even when we cut the acquisition time by 90%, image quality exceeded current standard-of-care methods."
All images acquired for two minutes or longer scored at least four out of five in every category, and all one-minute images scored at least three out of five. Image scores declined as scan times shortened, with the largest decrease at one minute, particularly for image noise. Even so, these images were closer in quality to the full 10-minute LA-FOV images than the standard-of-care SA-FOV images.
Objective measurements of image quality also supported the findings, with signal-to-noise ratios in healthy liver tissue remaining broadly consistent between the ten-minute and one-minute images for the radiotracers assessed.
Shorter scans have the potential to make PET/CT more comfortable for patients, particularly those who are in pain or find it difficult to lie still, while also reducing image blurring caused by movement. They could also help imaging departments scan more patients each day. Alternatively, the higher sensitivity of LA-FOV systems could be used to reduce the amount of radiotracer administered.3
"Total-body PET gives us choices we haven't had before," said Dr Pain. "We can use its sensitivity to scan patients faster, to lower the radiation dose and to see disease more clearly."
Further research will be needed to confirm these findings. Image quality was assessed using reader scores rather than measures of diagnostic accuracy, so larger studies will be important to confirm that very short scans do not miss small or faint lesions and to determine how faster scanning affects workflow and patient experience in routine clinical practice.
