AbstractBackgroundTotal‐body dynamic positron emission tomography (dPET) imaging using ¹⁸F‐fluorodeoxyglucose (¹⁸F‐FDG) has received widespread attention in clinical oncology. However, the conventionally required scan duration of approximately 1 h seriously limits the application and promotion of this imaging technique. In this study, we investigated the possibility and feasibility of shortening the total‐body dynamic scan duration to 30 min post‐injection (PI) with the help of a novel Patlak data processing algorithm for accurate K_i estimations of tumor lesions.MethodsTotal‐body dPET images acquired by uEXPLORER (United Imaging Healthcare Inc.) using ¹⁸F‐FDG of 15 patients with different tumor types were analyzed in this study. Dynamic images were reconstructed into 25 frames with a specific temporal dividing protocol for the scan data acquired 1 h PI. Patlak analysis‐based K_i parametric imaging was conducted based on the imaging data corresponding to the first 30 min PI, during which a Patlak data processing method based on cubic Hermite interpolation was applied. The resultant K_i images acquired by 30 min dynamic PET data and the standard 1 h K_i images were compared in terms of visual imaging effect, region signal‐to‐noise ratio, and K_i estimation accuracy to evaluate the performance of the proposed K_i imaging method with a shortened scan duration.ResultsWith the help of Patlak data processing, acceptable K_i parametric images were obtained from dynamic PET data acquired with a scan duration of 30 min PI. Compared with K_i images obtained from unprocessed Patlak data, the resulting images from the proposed method performed better in terms of noise reduction. Moreover, Bland–Altman plot and Pearson correlation coefficient analysis showed that that 30 min K_i images obtained from the processed Patlak data had higher accuracy for tumor lesions.ConclusionSatisfactory K_i parametric images with high tumor accuracy can be acquired from dynamic imaging data corresponding to the first 30 min PI. Patlak data processing can help achieve higher K_i imaging quality and higher accuracy regarding tumor lesion K_i values. Clinically, it is possible to shorten the dynamic scan duration of ¹⁸F‐FDG PET to 30 min to acquire an accurate tumor K_i and further effective tumor detection with uEXPLORER scanners.