EARL has initiated ¹⁸F standards 2 accreditation, while keeping effective ¹⁸F standards 1. The limits of acceptability for the recovery coefficients for each of the two standards can be reviewed in the section Accreditation Specifications.

Imperative points to consider include but are not limited to:

• The images conforming to EARL ¹⁸F standards 1 cannot be pooled with those conforming to EARL ¹⁸F standards 2
• The visual interpretation of the PET images may differ between these two standards as stated in Updating PET/CT performance standards and PET/CT interpretation criteria should go hand in hand by Boellaard et al. EJNMMI Research 2019
• ¹⁸F standards 2 allows sites to benefit from state-of-the-art PET/CT technology while still ensuring harmonised PET/CT system performance and SUV comparability in a multicenter study with a new ¹⁸F standards 2.
• Uniformity phantom data is submitted every quarter, while a NEMA IEC body phantom is requested to be submitted once pear year. Both of those data sets are required to be submitted every time there is a scanner recalibration, hardware and/or software update.