Compared performances of high-sensitivity cameras dedicated to myocardial perfusion tomoscintigraphy: a comprehensive analysis of phantom and human images

Description

Differences in the performances of cadmium‐zinc‐telluride (CZT) cameras and/or collimation systems, which have recently been commercialized for myocardial SPECT, remain unclear. In the present study, the performances of three of these systems were compared by a comprehensive analysis of phantom and human SPECT images. Methods. We evaluated the Discovery‐NM530c (1) and DSPECT (2) CZT‐cameras, as well as Anger Symbia cameras equipped with an astigmatic (IQSPECT (3)) or parallel‐hole (Conventional‐SPECT (4)) collimator. Physical performances were compared on conventionally reconstructed SPECT images from phantoms and from comparable groups of normal subjects. Results. Classifications were as follows, in order of performance: 1) for count sensitivity on cardiac phantom images (count.sec‐1.MBq‐1): DSPECT (850), Discovery‐NM530c (460), IQSPECT (390) and Conventional‐SPECT (130). This classification was similar to that of myocardial counts normalized to injected activities from human images (respective mean values in count.sec‐1.MBq‐1: 11.4±2.6, 5.6±1.4, 2.7±0.7, and 0.6±0.1); 2) for central spatial resolution: Discovery‐NM530c (6.7mm), DSPECT (8.6mm), IQSPECT (15.0mm) and Conventional‐SPECT (15.3mm), also in accordance with the analysis of the sharpness of myocardial contours on human images (in cm‐ 1: 1.02±0.17, 0.92±0.11, 0.64±0.12 and 0.65±0.06, respectively); and 3) for contrast‐ to‐noise ratio on phantom: Discovery‐NM530c (4.6), DSPECT (4.1), IQSPECT (3.9), Conv‐SPECT (3.5), similarly to that documented on human images (5.2±1.0, 4.5±0.5, 3.9±0.6 and 3.4±0.3, respectively). Conclusion. The performances of CZT cameras are dramatically higher than those from Anger cameras, even in conditions of human SPECT images. However, CZT cameras differ in that spatial resolution and contrast‐to‐noise ratio are better with the Discovery‐NM530c, whereas count sensitivity is markedly higher with the DSPECT.

Abstract

Abstract published in European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, 39(Suppl 2):S208

Abstract

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