Contacts:

Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
Radiology Department
White 427
55 Fruit Street
Boston, MA 02114

Phone:	(617) 726-9640
Fax:	(617) 726-6165

Bio sketch:

Research interests:

Dr. Georges El Fakhri is the Director of Molecular Imaging Physics and Instrumentation, and of the Post Graduate Program in Radiological Sciences at NMMI-MGH.  He serves as co-Director of Physics and Instrumentation in the Harvard Joint Program in Nuclear Medicine, and is an Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School.  His research interests include:

• Quantitative Simultaneous PET-MR

• Non Rigid Motion Correction in PET Using Simultaneous SPAMM MRI

• Adaptive Proton Therapy Using In-room PET

• Simultaneous Dynamic Dual Tracer SPECT and PET

• Absolute Quantitation of Myocardial Blood Flow Using Dynamic PET

• Development of Novel Physical Corrections for Quantitative PET and SPECT

• Quantitative Y-86 PET for Personalized Y-90 Radionuclide Therapy

• Objective Assessment of Image Quality for Estimation and Detection Tasks

Publications:

2009

• El Fakhri G., Kardan A., Sitek A., Dorbala S., Abi-Hatem N., Lahoud Y., Fischman A.J., Coughlan M., Yasuda T., Di Carli M.F. Reproducibility and Accuracy of Quantitative Myocardial Blood Flow Assessment Using ⁸²Rb-PET: Comparison with ¹³N-Ammonia. J. Nucl. Med. 2009; in press.

• Zhu X.and El Fakhri G. Monte Carlo modeling of cascade gamma rays in 86Y PET imaging: Preliminary results. Phys. Med. Biol. 2009: in press.

2008

• Ouyang J., El Fakhri G., Moore S.C. Improved activity estimation in In-111 SPECT using MC-JOSEM. Med. Phys. 2008; 35: 2029-2040.

• Anagnostopoulos C., Almonacid A., El Fakhri G., Currilova Z., Sitek A., Roughton M., Dorbala S., Popma J., Di Carli M. Quantitative Relationship Between Coronary Vasodilator Reserve Assessed by Rubidium-82 PET Imaging and Coronary Artery Stenosis Severity. Eur. J. Nucl. Med. Mol. Imag. 2008; 35: 1593-1601.

• Trott C. and El Fakhri G. �Sequential and simultaneous dual-isotope brain SPECT: comparison with PET, for estimation and discrimination tasks in early parkisnon disease�. Med. Phys., 2008; 35: 3343-3353.

• Zaidi H. and El Fakhri G. �Is absolute quantification of dopaminergic neurotransmission studies with ¹²³I SPECT ready for clinical use?�. Eur. J. Nucl. Med. Mol. Imag. 2008; 35: 1330-1333.

• Gu�rin B. and El Fakhri G. Realistic PET Monte Carlo simulation with pixellated block detectors, light sharing, random coincidences and dead-time modeling. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci. 2008; 55: 942-952.

• Ouyang J., Zhu X., Trott C., El Fakhri G. Quantitative simultaneous 99mTc/123I cardiac SPECT using MC-JOSEM Med. Phys. 2008; in press.

2007

• Habert M.O., Lacomblez L., Makusd P., El Fakhri G., Pradat P.F., Meininger V. Brain perfusion imaging in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis : Extent of cortical changes according to the severity and topography of motor impairment. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, 2007; 8: 9-15.

• Kas A., Payoux P., Habert M.O., Malek M., Cointepas Y., El Fakhri G., Itti E., Remy P. Validation of standardized normalization template for statistical parametric mapping analysis of 123I-FPCIT images. J. Nucl. Med; 2007; 48: 1459-1467.

• Ouyang J., El Fakhri G., Moore S.C. Fast Monte Carlo Simulation Based Joint Iterative Reconstruction for Simultaneous 99mTc/123I Brain SPECT Imaging. Med. Phys. 2007; 34: 3263-3272.

• El Fakhri G., Santos P., Badawi R.D., Holdsworth C.H., Van den Abbeele A.D., Kijewski M.F. Impact of acquisition geometry, image processing, and patient habitus on tumor detection in whole - body FDG-PET. J. Nucl. Med. 2007; 48: 1951-1960. [PDF]

• Mamede M., El Fakhri G., Abreu-e-Lima P., Gandler W., Nose V., Gerbaudo V. Pre-operative estimation of esophageal tumor metabolic length in FDG PET images with surgical pathology confirmation. Ann Nucl Med. 2007; 21: 553-562.

• Di Carli M.F., Dorbala S., Meserve J., El Fakhri G., Sitek A., Moore S.C. Clinical myocardial perfusion PET-CT. J. Nucl. Med; 2007; 48: 783-793.

2006

• El Fakhri G., Habert M.O., Maksud P., Kas A., Malek Z., Kijewski M.F., and Lacomblez L.. Quantitative simultaneous 99mTc-ECD/123I-FP-CIT SPECT in Parkinson disease and multiple system atrophy. Eur. J. Nucl. Med. Mol. Imag. 2006; 33: 87-92.

• El Fakhri G., Ouyang J., Zimmerman R.E., Fischman A.J., Kijewski M.F. Performance of a Novel Collimator for High � Sensitivity Brain SPECT. Med. Phys. 2006; 33:209-215.

• El Fakhri G., Sitek A., Zimmerman R.E., Ouyang J. Generalized Five Dimensional Dynamic and Spectral Factor Analysis. Med. Phys. 2006; 33: 1016-1024. [PDF]

• Moore S.C., Ouyang J., Park M., El Fakhri G. Monte Carlo-based compensation for patient scatter, detector scatter, and crosstalk contamination in In-111 SPECT imaging. Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A. 2006; 569: 472-476.

• Ouyang J., El Fakhri G., Xia W., Kijewski M.F., Genna S. The Design and Manufacture of an Annular Variable-focusing Collimator for High-sensitivity Brain SPECT. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 2006; 53: 2613-2618.

2005

• El Fakhri G., Sitek A., Gu�rin B., Kijewski M.F., Di Carli M.F., and Moore S.C. Quantitative dynamic cardiac 82Rb-PET imaging using generalized factor and compartment analyses. J. Nucl. Med. 2005; 46: 1264-1271 (2006 Mosby-Year Book of Nuclear Medicine). [PDF]

• Moore S.C., Kijewski M.F., and El Fakhri G. Collimator optimization for detection and quantitation tasks: application to gallium-67 imaging. IEEE Trans. Med. Imag; 2005; 24: 1347-1356.

2004

• El Fakhri G., Kijewski M.F., Albert M.S., Johnson K.A., and Moore S.C. Quantitative SPECT leads to improved performance in discrimination tasks related to prodromal Alzheimer�s disease. J. Nucl. Med. 2004; 45: 2026-2031. [PDF]

2003

• El Fakhri G., Kijewski M.F., Johnson K.A., Syrkin G, Killiany R.J., Becker JA, Zimmerman R.E., Albert M.S. MRI-Guided SPECT perfusion measures and volumetric MRI in prodromal Alzheimer�s disease. Arch Neurol 2003; 60: 1066-1072. [PDF]

• El Fakhri G., Moore S.C., Maksud P, and Kijewski M.F. The effects of compensation for scatter, lead x-rays and high-energy contamination on lesion detectability and activity estimation in Ga-67 imaging. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 2003; 50: 439-445. [PDF]

2002

• El Fakhri G., Maksud P., Kijewski M.F., et al. Quantitative simultaneous 99mTc/123I SPECT: design study and validation with Monte Carlo simulations and physical acquisitions. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 2002 ; 49: 2315-2321. [PDF]

• El Fakhri G., Moore S.C., and Kijewski M.F. Optimization of Ga-67 imaging for detection and estimation tasks: dependence of imaging performance on spectral acquisition parameters. Med Phys 2002; 29: 1859-1866. [PDF]

2001

• El Fakhri G, Moore S.C, Maksud P, Aurengo A, Kijewski M.F. Absolute activity quantitation in simultaneous I-123/Tc-99m brain SPECT. J Nucl Med 2001; 42: 300-308. [PDF]

• El Fakhri G, Moore S.C., Maksud P. A new scatter compensation method for Ga-67 Imaging using artificial neural networks. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci. [PDF]

• El Fakhri G, Kijewski M.F, Moore S.C. Absolute activity quantitation from projections using an analytical approach: comparison with iterative methods in brain SPECT. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci. [PDF]

• Moore SC and El Fakhri G. Realistic Monte Carlo simulation of Ga-67 SPECT imaging. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 2001.

2000

• El Fakhri G, Buvat I, Benali H, Todd-Pokropek A, Di Paola R. Relative impact of scatter, attenuation, collimator response and finite spatial resolution corrections in cardiac SPECT. J Nucl Med 2000;41:1400-1408. [PDF]

• El Fakhri G, Maksud P, Kijewski M.F, Habert M.O, Todd-Pokropek A, Aurengo A, Moore S.C. Scatter and Cross-Talk Corrections in Simultaneous Tc-99m/I-123 Brain SPECT using Constrained Factor Analysis and Artificial Neural Networks. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 2000;47:1573-1580. [PDF]

• El Fakhri G, Buvat I, Almeida P, Bendriem B, Todd-Pokropek A, Benali H. Should scatter be corrected in both transmission and emission data for accurate quantitation in cardiac SPECT? Eur J Nucl Med 2000;27:1356-1364. [PDF]

1999

• P�l�grini M, Buvat I, El Fakhri G, Benali H, Grangeat P, Di Paola R. A spline-regularized minimal residual algorithm for iterative attenuation correction in SPECT. Phys Med Biol 1999; 10: 2623-2642.

• El Fakhri G, Buvat I, P�l�grini M, Benali H, Almeida P, Bendriem B, Todd-Pokropek A, Di Paola R. Respective roles of scatter, attenuation, collimator response and partial volume effect in cardiac SPECT quantitation: a Monte Carlo study. Eur J Nucl Med 1999 ; 26 : 437-446. [PDF]

1998

• El Fakhri G, Maksud P, Aurengo A. Evaluation of scatter correction methods using Monte Carlo simulation in non uniform media. SPIE 1998; 3338: 363-369. [PDF]

• Maksud P, Fertil B, Rica C, El Fakhri G, Aurengo A. Artificial neural network as a tool to compensate for scatter and attenuation in radionuclide imaging. J Nucl Med 1998; 39; 4; 735-745.

• P�l�grini M, Benali H, Buvat I, El Fakhri G, Di Paola R. Two-dimensional statistical model for regularized backprojection in SPECT. Phys Med Biol 1998; 43: 421-434.