A study on differentiation of extra-cardiac activity by Slit Slat collimation in Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Immunology Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

2 Departments of Radiology, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

3 Nuclear Medicine Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

4 Departments of Medical Physics, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Myocardial perfusion SPECTby 99mTc-Sestamibi and 99mTc-Tetrofosmin radiopharmaceuticals usually presents a false significant increase in the radiotracer uptake in the inferior myocardium due to the uptake in organs such as liver, bowel, stomach and biliary system. The present study evaluated a suitable Slit angle for differentiating extra-cardiac activities by Slit Slat collimation.
Methods: The Siemens E.CAM gamma camera equipped with a Low Energy High Resolution (LEHR) collimator was simulated with the Simulating Medical Imaging Nuclear Detectors (SIMIND) Monte Carlo program. Following the verification of the simulation, a Slit Slat collimator was simulated for SPECT imaging of a NURBS-based Cardiac Torso (NCAT) phantom with different Slit angels ranged from 0 to 30 degrees. The reconstructed images were qualitatively assessed with blinded observer method by three nuclear medicine specialists.
Results:The improved differentiation of the bowel activity from the cardiac was obtained by a Slit-Slat collimator with the Slit angle of 7 degree. While for gastric activity differentiation an angle of 15 degree for the Slit was useful.

Conclusion: The results showed that Slit Slat collimation with 7 and 15 Slit angle provide a suitable differentiation of the bowel and gastric activities from the cardia, respectively.

Keywords

Main Subjects


  1. Liu C, Xu J, Tsui BM. Myocardial perfusion SPECT using a rotating multi-segment slant-hole collimator. Med Phys. 2010 Apr;37(4):1610-8.
  2. Caobelli F, Kaiser SR, Thackeray JT, Bengel FM, Chieregato M, Soffientini A, Pizzocaro C, Savelli G, Galelli M, Guerra UP. IQ SPECT allows a significant reduction in administered dose and acquisition time for myocardial perfusion imaging: evidence from a phantom study. J Nucl Med. 2014 Dec;55(12):2064-70.
  3. Armstrong IS, Saint KJ, Tonge CM, Arumugam P. Evaluation of general-purpose collimators against high-resolution collimators with resolution recovery with a view to reducing radiation dose in myocardial perfusion SPECT: A preliminary phantom study. J Nucl Cardiol. 2017 Apr;24(2):596-604.
  4. Onishi H, Matsutomo N, Kangai Y, Saho T, Amijima H. Differential impact of multi-focus fan beam collimation with L-mode and conventional systems on the accuracy of myocardial perfusion imaging: Quantitative evaluation using phantoms. Asia Ocean J Nucl Med Biol. 2013 Fall;1(2):28-34.
  5. Chen X, Guo Y, Zhang Q, Hao G, Jia H, Liu B. Preparation and biological evaluation of 99mTc-CO-MIBI as myocardial perfusion imaging agent. J Organomet Chem. 2008;693(10):1822-8.
  6. Rojas G, Raff U, Gonzalez P, Jaimovich R, Quintana JC. Semi-automated assessment of left ventricular mass using transaxial Tc-99m Sestamibi SPECT imaging. Comput Med Imaging Graph. 2009 Jun;33(4):247-55.
  7. Kim YS, Wang J, Broisat A, Glover DK, Liu S. Tc-99m-N-MPO: novel cationic Tc-99m radiotracer for myocardial perfusion imaging. J Nucl Cardiol. 2008 Jul-Aug;15(4):535-46.
  8. Peace RA, Lloyd JJ. The effect of imaging time, radiopharmaceutical, full fat milk and water on interfering extra-cardiac activity in myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomography. Nucl Med Commun. 2005 Jan;26(1):17-24.
  9. Branderhorst W, van der Have F, Vastenhouw B, Viergever MA, Beekman FJ. Murine cardiac images obtained with focusing pinhole SPECT are barely influenced by extra-cardiac activity. Phys Med Biol. 2012 Feb 7;57(3):717-32.
  10. Adamson K. Principles of myocardial SPECT imaging. In: Movahed A, Gnanasergaran G, Buscombe J, Hall M, editors. Integrating cardiology for nuclear medicine physicians. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Germany; 2009. p.191-211.
  11. Hofman M, McKay J, Nandurkar D. Efficacy of milk versus water to reduce interfering infra-cardiac activity in 99mTc-sestamibi myocardial perfusion scintigraphy. Nucl Med Commun. 2006 Nov;27(11):837-42.
  12. Afzelius P, Henriksen JH. Extra cardiac activity detected on myocardial perfusion scintigraphy after intra-arterial injection of 99mTc-MIBI. Clin Physiol Funct Imaging. 2008 Sep;28(5):285-6.
  13. Gholamrezanezhad A, Moinian D, Eftekhari M, Mirpour S, Hajimohammadi H. The prevalence and significance of increased gastric wall radiotracer uptake in sestamibi myocardial perfusion SPECT. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging. 2006 Jun-Aug;22(3-4):435-41.
  14. Smith MF. Recent advances in cardiac SPECT instrumentation and system design. Curr Cardiol Rep. 2013 Aug;15(8):387.
  15. Dehestani N, Sarkar S, Ay MR, Sadeghi M, Shafaei M. Comparative assessment of rotating slat and parallel hole collimator performance in GE DST-Xli gamma camera: A Monte Carlo study. In: Vander Sloten J, Verdonck P, Nyssen M, Haueisen J (eds). 4th European Conference of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering. IFMBE Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. 2009; 22:1062-65.
  16. Bal G, Clackdoyle R, Kadrmas DJ, Zeng GL, Christian PE. Evaluating rotating slant-hole SPECT with respect to parallel hole SPECT. IEEE Nucl Sci Symp Med Imag Conf. 2000;22:67-71.
  17. Metzler SD, Accorsi R, Novak JR, Ayan AS, Jaszczak RJ. On-axis sensitivity and resolution of a slit-slat collimator. J Nucl Med. 2006 Nov;47(11):1884-90.
  18. Cao L, Peter J. Slit-slat collimator equipped gamma camera for whole-mouse SPECT-CT imaging. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2012;59:530-6.
  19. Caobelli F, Thackeray JT, Soffientini A, Bengel FM, Pizzocaro C, Guerra UP. Feasibility of one-eighth time gated myocardial perfusion SPECT functional imaging using IQ-SPECT. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2015 Nov;42(12):1920-8.
  20. Chang W, Ordonez CE, Liang H, Li Y, Liu J. C-SPECT - a clinical cardiac SPECT/Tct platform: Design concepts and performance potential. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci. 2009 Oct 6;56(5):2659-2671.
  21. Rogers WL, Clinthorne NH, Stamos J, Koral KF, Mayans R, Keyes JW, Williams JJ, Snapp WP, Knoll GF. SPRINT: A stationary detector single photon ring tomograph for brain imaging. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 1982;1(1):63-8.
  22. DePuey EG. Advances in SPECT camera software and hardware: currently available and new on the horizon. J Nucl Cardiol. 2012 Jun;19(3):551-81; quiz 585.
  23. Slomka PJ, Patton JA, Berman DS, Germano G. Advances in technical aspects of myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging. J Nucl Cardiol. 2009 Mar-Apr;16(2):255-76.
  24. Ljungberg M, Strand SE, King MA. The SIMIND Monte Carlo program. Monte Carlo calculations in nuclear medicine: Applications in diagnostic imaging. Taylor & Francis; 2012.
  25. Kau D, Metzler SD. Finding optimized conditions of slit-slat and multislit-slat collimation for breast imaging. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci. 2012;59:62-9.
  26. Ghaly M, Du Y, Fung GS, Tsui BM, Links JM, Frey E. Design of a digital phantom population for myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging research. Phys Med Biol. 2014 Jun 21;59(12):2935-53.
  27. Holly TA, Abbott BG, Al-Mallah M, Calnon DA, Cohen MC, DiFilippo FP, Ficaro EP, Freeman MR, Hendel RC, Jain D, Leonard SM, Nichols KJ, Polk DM, Soman P; American Society of Nuclear Cardiology. Single photon-emission computed tomography. J Nucl Cardiol. 2010 Oct;17(5):941-73.
  28. Bahreyni Toossi MT, Islamian JP, Momennezhad M, Ljungberg M, Naseri SH. SIMIND Monte Carlo simulation of a single photon emission CT. J Med Phys. 2010 Jan;35(1):42-7.
  29. Kalantari F, Rajabi H, Yaghoobi N. Optimized energy window configuration for 201Tl imaging. J Nucl Med Technol. 2008 Mar;36(1):36-43.
  30. Saad IE, Helal NL, El-Din HM, Moneam RA. Evaluation of varying acquisition parameters on the image contrast in spect studies. Int J  Res Rev Appl Sci. 2012;13:485-91.
  31. NEMA NU 1-2012 Performance Measurements of Gamma Cameras. The National Electrical Manufactures Association (NEMA). 2012.
  32. Piccinelli M, Garcia EV. Advances in software for faster procedure and lower radiotracer dose myocardial perfusion imaging. Prog Cardiovasc Dis. 2015 May-Jun;57(6):579-87.
  33. Yussoff MS, Zakaria A. Relationship between the optimum cut off frequency for Butterworth filter and lung-heart ratio in 99mTc myocardial SPECT. Iran J Radiat Res. 2010;8:17-24.
  34. Esser PD, Alderson PO, Mitnick RJ, Arliss JJ. Angled-collimator SPECT (A-SPECT): an improved approach to cranial single photon emission tomography. J Nucl Med. 1984 Jul;25(7):805-9.
  35. Sheng J. An elliptical SPECT system with slit-slat collimation for cardiac imaging. Comput Med Imaging Graph. 2011 Jan;35(1):9-15.