What Is SUV in PET/CT?

What Is SUV in PET/CT

The standardized uptake value (SUV) turns the raw activity concentration a PET scanner measures into a number that can be compared between patients and between examinations. It divides the measured concentration by the injected dose and normalizes for body size — by weight for SUVbw, the most common form, and by lean body mass or body surface area for the variants.

A region of interest usually reports several figures: SUVmax, the single hottest voxel, robust to how the region was drawn but sensitive to noise; SUVmean, the average over the region, steadier but dependent on where the boundary was placed; and SUVpeak as a compromise.

SUV is only as good as the data behind it. It depends on the injected activity, the injection time and the decay correction being recorded correctly in the DICOM attributes, on the uptake interval between injection and acquisition, and on the reconstruction the scanner applied. Values from different scanners, protocols or uptake times are not directly comparable, which is why a change in SUV on a follow-up study is read with the acquisition parameters in hand rather than on its own.

In Weasis, see PET/CT Image Fusion with SUV.