Preliminary experience with small animal SPECT imaging on clinical gamma cameras

The traditional lack of techniques suitable for in vivo imaging has induced a great interest in molecular imaging for preclinical research. Nevertheless, its use spreads slowly due to the difficulties in justifying the high cost of the current dedicated preclinical scanners. An alternative for lower...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Aguiar Fernández, Pablo, Silva Rodríguez, Jesús, Herranz Carnero, Michel, Ruibal Morell, Alvaro
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Servizo Galego de Saúde (SERGAS)
Repositorio:RUNA. Repositorio da Consellería de Sanidade e Sergas
OAI Identifier:oai:runa.sergas.gal:20.500.11940/6334
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11940/6334
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/369509
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Gamma Cameras
Phantoms, Imaging
Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
Cámaras gamma
Fantasmas de Imagen
Tomografía Computarizada de Emisión de Fotón Único
Descripción
Sumario:The traditional lack of techniques suitable for in vivo imaging has induced a great interest in molecular imaging for preclinical research. Nevertheless, its use spreads slowly due to the difficulties in justifying the high cost of the current dedicated preclinical scanners. An alternative for lowering the costs is to repurpose old clinical gamma cameras to be used for preclinical imaging. In this paper we assess the performance of a portable device, that is, working coupled to a single-head clinical gamma camera, and we present our preliminary experience in several small animal applications. Our findings, based on phantom experiments and animal studies, provided an image quality, in terms of contrast-noise trade-off, comparable to dedicated preclinical pinhole-based scanners. We feel that our portable device offers an opportunity for recycling the widespread availability of clinical gamma cameras in nuclear medicine departments to be used in small animal SPECT imaging and we hope that it can contribute to spreading the use of preclinical imaging within institutions on tight budgets.